No Freckles
by Out-of-the-way-girl
Summary: Lucy has never been sure what being a 'Weasley' entails, but she's almost certain that, whatever it is, she doesn't have it, not even the freckles. Lucy Weasley/OC. Had a bit of a revamp - please, read or re-read and review!
1. Prologue

**Prologue.**

"Grandma?"

Lucy opened the door in a wide arc. She leant the weight of her body into it when it caught and jarred and wound her neck around the doorframe. The Burrow kitchen was her favourite place to be, where it was no-one else's, and Molly Weasley - the seeming conductor of several, frantic kitchen utensils – was her favourite person, with that frenzied, flushed face. The gleam in her eyes was so much more pronounced when she was all frizzy, and busy.

Her grandmother cast her an over-the-shoulder glance and waved her in with an airy hand and called –

"One minute, dear."

So Lucy breathed in the heady, earthy Burrow scent, and let her fingers chase the smoke leaking back out through the open door as she came to the long, wooden table. She leant over it, onto her nimble elbows, and rested her chin in her hands, where she had a decent view out of the window.

The weak sunlight cast her many cousins, uncles and Auntie Ginny as silhouettes at the end of the garden. She slipped a nimble hand round the back of her neck, stroking the short, soft hair at the base of her scalp as she watched.

Uncle Harry and Auntie Ginny had polarised. She couldn't hear them from here, though she could tell that they were Quidditch team-choosing all the same. The outlines of Albus and Rose clapping beater's bats together jauntily, and moving to join Uncle Harry were hazy in the heat. Cousin by cousin by uncle, they dribbled to either side; Bill, Ron, George, Charlie, Teddy, James, Victoire, Dominique, Fred, Roxanne, Lily, Hugo and even nimble, little Louis. They were all chest bumping, slapping hands and huddling feircley close in all their Weasley-hood glory.

Lucy dragged her eyes away, to find she was being watched. Molly Weasley was leant with her back to the hectic cookery, hands splayed out on either side of her, gripping the work-top. It was so easy to get lost in those bright eyes, or the folds of her soft skin, or to bury your face in her frizzy, greying hair.

"Aren't you going to join them?" She asked softly, moving over the the wooden table too. Lucy looked at her, straight on, as her brow puckered in a frown.

"I've never ridden a broom proper though. Dad doesn't like us to ride brooms, Gran. You know that."

Yes, Gran knew that, though she cocked her eyebrow at Lucy all the same and whispered –

"Because that would stop a Weasley," Lucy's eyes turned steely, locked fiercely with her Grandmother's. "Hmmm… But you're not much like Ginny, are you."

It wasn't a question, and she continued quietly, "Do you know that the boys said as much the same thing to her as your father says to you now? But your Auntie Ginny learned anyway, in the dead of the night instead."

"But I'm _not _like Auntie Ginny," Lucy urged, earnest and wide-eyed; she leaned in, as though telling a secret. "And I'm… I'm,"

Her gaze wandered to the window-view of the garden again. Her dad and sister were huddled together close-by, over a large volume, heads bent together seriously.

"I'm not the brightest witch to set foot in Hogwarts either, like Molly. I think that dad lumps us together, though. Molly was never interested in Quidditch, and that suited him fine, so he didn't think to ask me. But I'm _not _the fiery Weasley who tells him that, and I'm not the one who sneaks broom-practice anyway, or plays Quidditch, or makes mischief, or… Or, even has Freckles!"

She wasn't tearing-up, or wistful, but confused, as she watched nothing in particular, but with such focused intensity that you would have thought that she was.

"I don't know what it is Gran, except that I don't really… I don't make the cut."

"_Lucy!_" Molly admonished seriously, "Don't let me ever hear you say that again. "

She lowered her face to look her Granddaughter in the eye and gripped her hand tightly for good measure. "You don't have to 'make the cut', silly girl. You're Lucy _Weasley_ – and you can be any kind of Weasley that you want to be, because you'll still be a Weasley. You might not know what that is yet, but when you get to Hogwarts you can work it out. In the Gryffindor common room, toasting your feet against the fire, you can know who Lucy Weasley is."

Lucy dipped her head in a low nod.

Doubtfully.


	2. Badge

_BADGE._

You get a certain feeling when you're going home; I think everyone has this feeling, whether they have been away for months or years, or only hours, or whether they have never been home before at all. If you don't know it, then it's a warm feeling that fills you up, like the beginning of a sigh, like the smell of bread baking in grandma's kitchen. When you're going home, it doesn't matter where you've been, or where you'll go afterwards – all that matters is that moment, where the needle on the compass in your heart stops spinning, and settles north again.

I get this feeling when cool flames lick at the palms of my hands, as I stand in our fireplace and I cry out 'The Burrow!'; I get it when I smell freshly mown grass, turned over under my feet; I once got it when I found a little brown freckle on my wrist, and ran to show it to my dad.

I feel the same way, every year since I turned eleven, on the first day of September.

Today is my sixth first day of September, and though I still hold tightly onto Mum's right hand, I really am happy to be going back to my other home. We pass through the brickwork between Platforms nine and ten and I pause there for just a millisecond to imagine that I'm caught in a parallel concrete universe; I do this every year because I have always wondered whether if you stood in just the right place, that neither the magical world nor the muggle world would be able see you. Mum pulls on my hand, her thin fingers tightening over my own.

"Oh_ Lucy_, we're late, stop playing games," she clucks as I appear on the smoky platform. I really do love her, my mum, but I couldn't be more pleased that I will soon be whistling down the train-tracks, on my way to Hogwarts again. This past summer has been a very _long _one, with more than a few nasty surprises, and even more freckly family members on my doorstep; there must have been at least one, everyday, throughout the whole summer. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but only a little.

So, right now, I want nothing more than my four-poster bed, and my friends and Hagrid's little hut, and soon I will have them all, for months on end.

I swing our hands back and forth between us as we cross platform 9 ¾ , but she flicks my hand impatiently because I'm moving too slowly. With a smile and a slanting glance at my poor flustered mother with her un-brushed corn-silk hair, I quicken my slow footsteps to appease her. I always make people late and she tells me that its rude to keep people waiting, but I happen to be a slow sort of person and I simply cannot help being that way.

We soon reach the train, which is already riddled with people, who are calling to relatives out of open windows or heaving trunks up and down the corridor in search of friends and empty compartments. I leap onto the train, knees bending so that I land easily on the humming metal floor. I pause for a second to search the compartments nearby for familiar faces, but finding none, turn back quickly to help Mum lift my trunk and then Owl up and onto the train. His pinched, feathered face looks at me reprovingly as I take the cage, but I simply flick the narrow metal bars to tease him.

"That owl has such a temper," Mum says with distaste, as Owl clicks his keen beak angrily. I laugh a cacophony with the final whistle -

"I wouldn't have him any other way!"

The people are beginning to spill from platform to train, in a torrent of goodbye bear-hugs and kisses, shoulder claps and handshakes. Mum does none of these perfectly acceptable things; I turn to find her hands are reaching out to me, smoothing the creases at my sleeves, patting my hair and straightening the gleaming prefect badge that I have only reluctantly pinned to the front of my t-shirt. I let her for a small moment, because sometimes she _needs_ to be Mum, then I push her hands away gently.

She holds on to mine though.

"Now, you look after yourself, won't you Lucy," she says in just a whisper, but I hear her all the same.

Her eyes are sad, and have a look similar to the one that was there when it was my very first first day of September. I smile at her kindly, because I know that this year its even harder than the other years have been; later, she'll be saying goodbye to my dad too and sending him off to Hogwarts like she is now with me, for his new teaching post.

I want to say to her that I'd quite honestly rather that dad stayed at home with her too, but I know that she would tell me not to be rude. So instead, I squeeze her hand and smile, then give her a 'don't I always?' sort of look. I see myself in her face; there's the narrow chin that dips when I'm upset, the creamy skin, the high cheekbones and the round eyes. I smile again, pretending that she's my reflection and she'll do the same.

"I'll be fine Mum, and Molly will come to see you all the time, like she said to you – she's only across the road while she's working with auntie Hermione at the Ministry, and dad will visit on weekends..."

She doesn't smile, well, she does but its so watery that I don't think it can be counted. I lean down to let her give me a last peck on the cheek and then I step back as the train begins to roll forward.

"Bye, Mum," I call to her over the growling steam-engine, waving her thin face into the distance, until the first corner is turned and she disappears completely. Poor, poor Mum; I suppose she'll be alright eventually. The train snakes through the tunnel, and I'm thrown into flicking darkness as I grip Owl in one hand and my trunk in the other, and move off along the corridor between compartments.

There's nothing better than going back to Hogwarts after a _long_ summer.

My eyes sift through compartment doors as I move along the narrow corridor, left, right, here, over there; inside the fourth compartment on the right, I find the faces I've been looking for. My excited fingers grapple with the handle and I quickly slide open the door to greet my best friends.

"I missed you, Shacklebolt!" I cry, hastening into the compartment and dropping Owl in his cage on the seat. Amelia turns her head with a smile, and gives the trunk she is lifting one last push, so that it slides into the cubbyhole between the two other trunks on the luggage rack above us. Then, she reaches out and pulls me into a lovely, tight hug. Over her impossibly tall shoulder, that I struggle to push my chin onto, I say to the two boys sitting back-to-back along one of the seats – "and I've missed you two as well, of course!"

Amelia pushes me back gently to look at me, and sigh, "I can't _believe_ we haven't seen each other all summer!"

"I know! Merlin, you're too tall for me, Amelia!" I laugh genially. I have to look up at her, because proportionally I am probably about half her size, though its not really hard to be taller than me. I've missed her, my best friend - beautiful willowy Amelia Shacklebolt with her rich dark skin, bright eyes and glinting white teeth. Merlin, I've even missed the green handkerchief that she ties over her black frizzy bohemian curls; black hair, not silly red.

"Move over then beanpole, stop monopolising her!"

Tristan gets to his feet, and with a sly smile, moves past Amelia and picks me up from the floor in an sweeping embrace. I think he pats my head as he returns me to the floor, and simply says - "Hullo again, incredibly small person!"

"Oh, nice to see you too, Trist!"

I push his chest, making an indignant sound in the back of my throat, but he's right; I _am_ small, and I'm slight, with a neat little strawberry-blonde bob, round peat-coloured eyes and not a single Weasley freckle, except the one on my wrist, which in the end, turned out to be chocolate anyway. I let myself be fussed over by my mum, and that's why I'm kept so neat. I don't mind the way I am though, when I'm back among friends, rather than getting lost in my vast red-headed family.

I lean down to push my trunk under the long seat, and as I straighten up, hug the only person left that I can hug; he's Tristan's counterpart, only in round oversized glasses, and if you were to look more closely, then his jaw is a little narrower.

"Long time no see, Drew," I say with a smile, and then I'm finally able to take the opposite seat.

Amelia lowers herself onto the seat at my side, and Tristan moves to sit back-to-back with Drew again. I smile around at my very best friends fondly, having missed them all very much.

"So, how have the holidays been?" Tristan asks, with his bright and cheerful hazel eyes turned our way. Almost simultaneously, Drew's hazel eyes flicker over us too, but they're under large-framed glasses that are perched on the bridge of his nose; other than this small difference, and the jaw-thing, they're twins identical to the flick of their floppy dark hair; they both have rosy angled faces and a faint Welsh lilt when they speak.

"It's been aright, I suppose," Amelia answers dryly as she turns her back to lean against the window, "my dad worked a lot though, as usual; he couldn't even make it to the station today but he said he'd visit me when he has business at Hogwarts. Isn't that just the best? "

Drew tilts his glasses further down his long nose so that he can give her one of those serious, sympathetic looks that he gives so well. We all know that Kingsley Shacklebolt means well, but the problem is that he isn't_ there_ to mean well often enough. I reach over to squeeze Amelia's shoulder, but Tristan only folds his arms across his chest with a little smirk.

"I'd offer to swap but I don't think you'd want to trade one extreme for another," he says sardonically, turning his head to share an eye-roll with Drew, "Mum was _all for_ spending quality time together this year. Bless her, but it was horrible..."

"Oh, Spending time with family – sounds like a genuine nightmare," Amelia says sharply, and her eyes narrow. _Oh Tristan_, I think , _you have to learn how to be tactful_, though I secretly agree with him about the whole 'family-time' thing.

"_She had us pitching tents in big empty damp Welsh fields!" _Drew cries out earnestly, and none of us can help but laugh at the completely serious look on his face. I relish the cacophony of ringing laughter, soprano, alto and tenor, that I've missed in both my silent little family and my raucous wider one.

"All right, stalemate."

I smile, and consider venturing an occurrence much worse than soggy grass, concerning my overbearing father and his new job, when the compartment door slides wide again. We each look up in turn, and then greet the gangly and bespectacled boy who is stood in the doorway with a quiet chorus of 'hullo Roger'. He smiles weakly around the compartment with a little nod of his mousy head, and then turns to stare at me; he stares very pointedly and I wonder if I'm missing something.

"You're supposed to come to the Prefects' carriage?" he sighs, and raises his eyebrows with his large hands splayed on either side of the door frame. My hand goes straight to my forehead, and I garble a quick apology to Roger.

I forget that I'm a prefect.

"Right," I sigh, and Drew throws me a comic wink, magnified beneath his thick lenses. He's joking with me, but I scowl at him all the same as I leave the compartment. Its not that a _mind_ being a prefect exactly, but if I hadn't got a badge at all then I wouldn't have minded either. I just think that I'm too, what's the word... _plain, _to wear a shiny prefect badge; I'm not striking, and I'm not bold, and I'm certainly not a swat. In fact, I would quite happily unpin the badge and pass it on to someone else, right now.

Of course, I would never tell my dad any of these things; he is like a magpie and I am am just an ordinary wood-pigeon, who is content with worms. Amelia laughs when I use this analogy , but its true.

Roger hurries me to the prefects' carriage; he's no doubt worried about being chastised by Rose for punctuality or something similar, and I try to keep up as best as I can, which is difficult considering my strides are only half of his. I glance at him as we all but sprint the distance – poor Roger, who loves being a prefect, hates getting into trouble but is, alas, extremely dull.

I should probably introduce him to my dad.

Once we reach the perfects' carriage, we edge through the door, trying to be inconspicuous among the dozen students there, the newest ones with their backs poker-straight and each with their prefect badges glinting on their chests. Evidently, we fail at inconspicuousness, because Rose turns her head to stare impatiently at us almost at once.

"Sorry we're late," I say quietly, and flash Rose a sheepish look, which does nothing to appease her.

"That's alright," is her curt reply, as she leans over and pushes a patrol-timetable into my hands, and then another into Roger's. I have the good grace to blush slightly, then slide into an empty seat beside Albus, who digs his elbow into my ribs and makes a clucking sound at the back of his throat. I swat his arm.

Roger lingers awkwardly by the door, like a dog having been caught doing something naughty. Poor, goody-two-shoes Roger.

"As I was saying," Rose begins again, lifting up a copy of the time-table and addressing the new prefects, "prefect duties are quite simple...".

That's the only part of the ensuing speech that I bother listening to, because I've already heard it, and do not desire to hear it a second time. Instead, I stare absently at the highly polished head-girl badge pinned to Rose's chest, and think of everything _other_ than prefect duties.

Rose makes a very good head-girl; she purses her lips like a head-girl, and narrows her steely eyes like a head-girl and when she isn't doing either of those things, everyone loves her. If I was anything like Rose, then I'd be a good prefect too, but I'm not.

She speaks in circles though, round and round until I begin to despair of ever returning to my own compartment. Albus too, is humming quietly to himself and slyly checking his watch; even the head-boy, who is stretched along the seat behind Rose, has let his blonde hair fall in his eyes and looks intensely bored.

"OK, so I think that's everything," Rose concludes, smiling around at the prefects, like a queen to her subjects. I sit up straight again, roused from my not particularly interesting examination of the fly perched on the ear-piece of Roger's glasses. Rose turns to the head-boy - "You've been quiet _Scorpius_, anything to add?"

I share an uneasy glance with Albus, as we recognise the dangerously honeyed tone that Rose is using, which means, in no uncertain terms, that all hell is about to break loose.

Scorpius is evidently completely uneducated in these matters, and flicks his fringe from his eyes to say coolly - "Think you got everything, so we can probably get going now."

I have no desire to remain seated for whatever is to come; I swiftly hop up from my seat and with a small wave to Al, slip past Roger and hurry down the corridor as quickly as I can, lest I be reeled back in for some unthinkable reason.

Its quiet in the compartment, as I slide open the door; Drew has his back to the window and a Daily Prophet spread across his knees, with his bespectacled face close to the pages; I look down and Amelia and Tristan are sitting cross-legged, opposite each other on the compartment floor, having a staring contest.

"What took you so long?" Drew asks, peering over the top of the Prophet as the others wave me in without looking. I flop onto the seat opposite Drew, sighing deeply for dramatic effect. I feel the need to be dramatic about these things, to make them understand how much being a prefect disagrees with me.

"Rose was very _t__horough_," I groan, and lift up my legs to see if they are long enough to rest on the seat opposite; they aren't, unless I move forward on the seat, which leaves me in an uncomfortable and ungainly position, so I let them drop to the floor again, wishing for just another inch. I'm always wishing for just another inch.

Tristan reaches behind himself, searching the seat for something, and produces a pumpkin pasty. He tosses it to me, saying distractedly - "We thought that you might be hungry – sorry if it got cold."

"You're the best!" I thank him, but he's not listening to me.

"_You blinked_!"

" I did not!"

"Liar."

I listen to them bicker and laugh as I tear into the pastry with my teeth, taking a sizeable bite, and then I notice that Owl's pinched face is staring at me reproachfully from between the bars of his cage. I tear off a corner and let his little beak snatch it from my fingers, as I push the feast through the bars.

"There, you awful bird," I chide him, but affectionately. "Merlin, I hate going to the prefect carriage."

"You know, I don't know why you make such a fuss about being a prefect," Drew frowns, looking up from his paper at me, in that over the top of his frames way, "its not so bad, and it makes your dad happy, doesn't it?"

"I know, I know. I'm just whining," I sigh, and he smiles at me, but turns back to his Prophet.

I sit, chewing on the pasty, when his words remind me of something – something that makes me feel as though I've just swallowed stones and not mouthfuls of pumpkin pasty, that have settled heavily in the pit of my stomach.

"My dad," I tell them glumly, "is the new Transfiguration Professor. I meant to tell you before now."

Their three heads snap up simultaneously.

"_What_?" chorus Tristan and Drew, sitting up.

"You're kidding, right?" Amelia laughs.

"It wouldn't make a very good joke, Amelia," I sigh, leaning back against the window, and very much wishing that this all _was_ some sort of joke. "No, he's the new Transfiguration teacher. I know, it's bad."

There is a long silence while they digest the news, and its the sort of news that no one wants to digest, like swallowing a lemon. I stare at the back of my hands and at my clean clipped nails that will soon have dirt under them, as I wait.

I have complained about dad's new job to the point of hoarseness, but he still can't understand what I find so horrible about, what was it he called it? Yes, a little _personal direction here and there_, because he helped Molly and she got straight O's. There is a difference between me and my sister though, that my dad cannot for some reason comprehend, and him being my teacher will be disastrous for these reasons; I am not as clever as, studious as, or in fact anything like Molly.

I wish I was something like her, though, because it would make everything a whole lot easier. When I was younger, I would watch them together over my shoulder as Mum stood me on a stool, so that she could wash my dusty hands and dirty knees in the sink; Molly would sit in his lap and read to him, both with their glasses glinting and horrid red hair shining in the sun, and they looked like their own little family.

I am more jealous of my sister than I let her know.

"Well, at least you haven't chosen Transfiguration as a N.E.W.T," Drew points out encouragingly, and I force myself to stop thinking about who I'm not. His words don't comfort me though, because there is another thing that I haven't told them -

"Wrong."

"What?"

"Wrong. I _have _chosen Transfiguration as a N.E.W.T."

"But you hate Transfiguration!" Amelia cries.

"And you're rubbish at it," Tristan agrees shrewdly.

"No offence," Drew adds.

"I _know_," I groan, burying my head in my hands; their disbelief makes me feel almost guilty. I feel rather than see Amelia staring hard at me, and I can tell that I am subject to intense scrutiny. I don't like this.

"Lucy, why are you taking Transfiguration?"

I don't like to lie to my friends, but I don't like the idea of being honest with them about this either; I'm a little bit ashamed. The one and only reason that I'm taking Transfiguration is because I'm being forced to, and because I don't like to disappoint my dad. I imagine telling the others this, and it sounds watery and sapless – _my dad doesn't think that _my_ subjects are very worthwhile, My dad says that I _have_ to take Transfiguration and make the most of myself; my dad, my dad, my dad, is holier than thou. _

There is no chance for me to explain to them then though, to my relief I admit, because the door slides open for a second time and Albus sinks into the seat beside Drew, looking tired.

"To what do we owe the pleasure?" Amelia asks, tactfully abandoning the previous conversation. I thank her silently, but by the way she raises her eyebrows, I'm am sure the inquisition will continue with a vengeance later.

"Oh, hullo Amelia," Al smiles at her amiably. "Well, Rosie and Malfoy are squabbling again, and its not very fun on the ears. You don't mind if I hide in here I suppose, do you? Merlin you're all quiet – who died?"

"Not Lucy's dad," Tristan mutters, even though the question doesn't really require answer. I kick him in the small of the back, though Al doesn't appear to have heard; he is now peering at the front page of Drew's Prophet, having obviously seen something of interest.

"My dad was doing major over-time because of that," He nods towards the front-page spread, with it's flicking strapline, but I can't see the article properly.

"Yeah, mine too," Amelia sighs, sharing a meaningful look with Al, that makes me feel a little left out. "Its giving the Ministry a real scare."

Drew nods deeply and his hazel eyes darken as he folds over the paper so that he can read the first page of parchment again. His eyes scan over the small type for a couple of seconds, then he reads out - '_An unnamed Ministry official revealed that they had been shocked to find on examination of the as yet unnamed boy, that the attack appeared deliberate. The Minister is alleged to have expressed worries concerning the creation of another 'pack', similar to that of a Fenrir Greyback in the Great War…_"

"What's that?" I ask quietly, trying to get a better look at the article, but Drew folds the Prophet under his arm looking troubled. I haven't heard anything like this over the summer, so I'm impatient for them to explain.

"It's why my dad worked so much this summer," Amelia frowns, "There was a werewolf attack on a boy a few weeks ago, and it's not the first to have happened recently. There have been a few similar attacks, haven't there Al? But what really got them worried and determined to find the culprit is that the attacks have been, what was it they said?"

"Single-bite attacks," Drew provides, nose in the paper again.

"Yeah, that was it. They were these 'single-bite attacks' which are unusual for a werewolf because they have so little control and usually end up, like, mauling the victim to death. My dad's worried that the werewolf who's doing it is dangerous, and managed to find a way of controlling himself, or herself, so that they can create some sort of wolf army, like that Greyback person did in the Great War."

"It's been pretty hectic," Al says quietly, after a moments silence, and then rolls his wild-green eyes - "James is loving all the 'ministry business', even the_ trainee_ Aurors have had a lot of work. Teddy's pretty down on it though, doesn't know what to think since, you know, his dad was a werewolf.

"Its things like this that scare people though, 'cause no one believes it can be this quiet forever..."

We each stare grimly at the inked article printed on the parchment. I shake my head back and forth a little, imagining that I'm batting away bad thoughts as Lorcan and Lysander always do; pulling at them with their fingers and tossing away the nargles, or the wrackspurts, or thin air as I suspect, because I'm very narrow-minded.

I hate the silence, and I want us to fill it with talk and with laughter.

"Well Al, you're right," I sigh, settling back into the seat; I am determined to charm the heavy air that has pulled down the corners of my friends mouths and pushed on their brows so that they frown, "All hell will break loose – because my father is now a professor at Hogwarts, and has forced me to take transfiguration and there is not a damn thing I can do about it."

Albus laughs heartily, but Drew gives gives me a look that tells me he doesn't think its a laughing matter, and that my dad's new job is definitely in league with werewolf attacks. After a short pause, Al says - "Yes, I'd heard. But, of course there's something you can do – you're a Weasley, so just tell him straight. I'd quite like to see a Weasley face-off actually, might brighten an ordinary Hogwarts day."

I smile at him grimly, whilst the others laugh and agree and begin another conversation which involves pitting various Weasley's off against each other. I venture names here and there but my mind is elsewhere. The train rolls on, plunging me ever further towards my sixth year at Hogwarts, and I fear that the face-off Al anticipates might not be as amusing as he expects it to be; Hogwarts is my escape, and now there will forever be a glinting pair of horn-rimmed spectacles watching and disapproving of each and every thing that I do.

I'm _not _happy, and I really do intend to let my dad know, though perhaps a Weasley face- off is a bit excessive. I rip the prefect badge from my chest, though quietly so that the others won't notice, and stuff it deep inside my pocket.

Its my first act of defiance.


	3. Silver

_SILVER._

"_Scamander, Lorcan!"_

Its been years since a name that I easily recognise has been called to be sorted, because I'm the third youngest Weasley; the last people I knew, that I saw sorted, were Louis in my third year. Lorcan isn't exactly family, I know, but if I had to call him something it would be an estranged sort of third cousin, and that is close enough to being family.

I lean forward over the wooden table, watching the top of his mousy head as it passes between the sea of black hats, to the wooden stool at the front. He sets himself down on it, and then his round face disappears under the sorting hat. I wait; I wonder if another person I know will follow everyone else to Gryffindor, but at least this one won't be another one of my cousins. I don't have to wait too long -

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Oh, brilliant.

I see the top of his head again, moving away from my table and clap weakly. I don't see why _everyone_ but me has to be a Gryffindor, or am I missing something? I breathe out through my nose; I shouldn't let this bother me – I'm where I want to be and that's what counts. I cast my eyes up and down the Ravenclaw table, silently counting the faces of my friends.

"_Scamander, Lysander!_"

I don't see Lysander until he's on the stool because he's so small. His thin face too, disappears beneath the fabric of the sorting hat, but his dirty-blond hair that he wears in a pony-tail, falls below the rim. His knees knock together whilst he waits in the cast of the hats shadow. I remember how it is, having that funny voice whispering like its in your head, telling you who you are and what you'll be.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Lysander goes still under the sorting hat and what I can see of his neck goes white, but I have to stop myself from leaping up. He slides off the stool and wordlessly passes the hat to Neville. I beat my fists on the table-top, a drum-roll behind the calls and whistles, like he's walking down a red-carpet and not between ordinary, long wooden tables.

"_Move up_!" I say excitedly to Drew, and we slide along the bench to make a little space for Lysansder. He rounds the table and walks parallel to the backs of the Ravenclaws until he reaches me and takes the seat I've made for him; but, he looks too sad as he sinks down onto the bench. I tug his ponytail fondly and say - "What's the matter, Sandy?"

Three more first years get sorted before he answers me; I can see him chewing over his words. He takes off his hat, turns it upside down and then plunges his hand into it, like a magician. A fat, little, orange hamster is sitting on the palm of his hand when the hat falls away and onto his knees. He strokes it along the nose as though pulling a hamster out of your hat is a very normal thing to do. I know Lysander though, so I just let him be.

"Can you believe, that mum managed to find me a _Mabelbear_?" He says finally, looking down at it. I look down too; it clicks it's teeth at me. That's weird, and I thought that it was a _hamster_. Drew is obviously thinking the same thing as I am, but he doesn't get Lysander like I do, and says -

"Uh, Isn't that a h-" I drive my elbow into his ribs before he can finish his whispered sentence. I don't think this is really the time to be getting into the science of whatever the hell a _Mabelbear_ is, with Lysander, if there is ever a time.

"I always said I didn't mind which house I went into, but..." Lysander says quietly, turning his pointed, black hat in his hands; the orange hamster, or Mabelbear, or whatever, has settled somewhere in the folds of his robes.

"Yes?"

"Well I- I didn't ever think about not being in a house with Lorcan; I didn't think about it at all."

I take his hat out of his hands and put it back onto his head, thinking of something that I can say. His face is as different from Lorcan's as a moonbeam from lightning, so it almost doesn't surprise me that Lysander is here, when Lorcan is over there.

"Well, maybe its time that you were just Lysander, for a little bit; it might not be so bad, chin up."

His smile is slow, and he goes quiet as '_Perks, Mary_' comes to our table; she has wild, black hair, small eyes and freckles across her nose, and she sits on the bench opposite Lysander. I watch them smile at each other and whisper their names across the table. I'll bet he doesn't even realise it yet, but he's already forgotten about Lorcan, and I knew that he would. I think its very easy to be your own person, if you have to be, and the first time I whispered my name to Amelia on my very first evening at Hogwarts, I forgot about my sister, and every single one of my cousins on another table; _I was Lucy, with the blue and bronze crest on her robes._

The line of first-years becomes nothing as Marcus Nott makes his way to the Slytherin table, and Neville carries the stool out of the hall under his right arm, and the folded sorting hat under his left. Professor Flitwick mounts his small pile of old volumes, and dust pours out from beneath the ancient covers as he climbs the little staircase that he's made for himself. I think that he's going to too much trouble, and so does every other hungry person across the vast hall, to simply say -

"Welcome to all, and have a happy eat!"

Food pops up through the burnished plates and as I pass Lysander the boiled potatoes, I'm happy to be eating with my friends.

Its the very first morning of my new school year, and I practically fall into Transfiguration, breathless, very late and already hating it. I bite down on my lip as the door knocks hard against the stone wall - oops. For a second or two, I stand there at the back of the room and cast my eyes over the backs of the heads that I can see; there isn't a single seat for me to sit in, which means that a lot of people must like Transfiguration. _Why do so many people like Transfiguration? _As though he's heardme, Dad turns from the board to give me a disapproving look, one of those famous ones where his horn-rimmed glasses slide down his nose. I wait for it -

"Five points from Ravenclaw, for lack of punctuality on your first day, Lucy. Sit down, now."

I ignore him in the most tactful way that I can manage, as he jerks his thumb in the direction of the only vacant seat – I must have missed it. Its next to a boy that I think I vaguely recognise; maybe he's the quiet sort of Hufflepuff that talks to no-one.

I want to stalk to the empty seat and take it, but instead I cover the distance slowly and with my head down, because I don't want to give my new teacher any more reason to make a spectacle of his ungainly daughter.

The clock face on the wall over Dad's head glints in the weak morning sunlight; its telling me that its 11:11 and time to make a wish. I close my eyes as I empty my things onto my own side of the table angrily, and I wish harder than I've ever wished before that my dad will go home, leave, disappear. I like to make wishes, on stars and at 11:11, and when I catch a fairy in the wind because making wishes makes me feel like I'm being looked after by something bigger; Drew calls it fate, but I don't know what to call it. I don't really like to call it fate too, because you can't change fate. Its like, when you read the end of a book, and you finish the very last passage, and even if the ending is happy, you're still left with that hollow feeling in your chest because there's no more to read; you want there to be more to it, so, you flick back through the pages and re-read little bits, when you know that the truth is, its finished. That's what it is, for me – fate is very _finished_, and I don't like it.

I suppose I wish, because it makes me feel better when I make a wish, like I'm throwing an idea down on a big table for someone, anyone, to think about. I hear my dad's voice and it makes my mind stop running, but I hope to Merlin that he's not one of those people sitting around that big table.

"As I was saying: N.E.W.T transfiguration is wholly different to anything you will have attempted…"

I sink into my chair and sulk whilst Dad drones an endless 'introduction to N.E.W.T level Transfiguration', none of which I really listen to. For the most part, I rest my elbows on the table-top, and push my narrow chin deep into the palms of my hands, feeling very sorry for myself. I'm going to fail this subject, and Dad, and the God's of Transfiguration and I've told him this, but Dad never listens to me; he didn't when I was eight and he wouldn't let me play Quidditch with my cousins, because he thought it was too unsafe, he's not now and he won't when I'm _thirty – _oh Merlin.

He slaps his ruler sharply against the board. I watch, almost appalled. "Discipline!" he calls, making his voice shake, low like a tenor. The whole class stares at him and no-one says a word, because no-one knows what to say. I can feel peoples' eyes on me too; before I know it, I'm blushing deep red, so I turn my face into my arm.

There is nothing worse than people seeing you blushing.

In my semi-darkness, where small shafts of orange light pour in through the gaps at my elbows, I wallow, and I wallow hard. A minute or so passes and the space gets stuffy, so I turn my head to the side to breathe fresh air; two pale, silver eyes are looking at me curiously. The sunlight spilling in the from the window behind him throws his face into sharp relief, the boy who's sat next to me, that is; it catches in his thick, glossy hair, casting the rich chestnut, ginger at the crown of his head. His fringe is one of those that hangs low over his surly eyes, but its gappy in places too, so that I can see parts of his dark, crescent eyebrows and the rest kinks and then flicks out at his cheeks and at his neck.

I realise that I am staring, which mum tells me is a very rude thing to do, so I cast my eyes quickly over his very broad face, sit up again and look away. I'm sure that he's still staring at me though, because I have that prickly feeling beneath my scalp. I can't help it, I look back again and almost catch one side of his mouth and an eyebrow cock up in a comical smirk; at least, I think that's what I saw, but now he's giving me a steely stare. His cool grey eyes narrow and goose-pimples pop up across the backs of my pale fore-arms.

I'm sure its a little bit weird that he's still staring at me and knows full well that I can see him doing it. If it were me, I'd have looked down and pretended that I hadn't been staring at all, but he doesn't do any of these things. He stares, and he doesn't say a word; I feel violated, especially as his eyes begin to rake my body.

"Stop it," I snap, under my breath. He doesn't answer me for a very, _very _long time, then -

"I wondered when you'd tell me to do that," he says, leaning back in his chair now. "Its a game I like to play, and I don't believe in being polite."

"Well, I don't like being objectified by a- well a stranger, whether he cares about social- social etiquette or not," I hiss, but my words are strained and I can tell that my face is beet-red.

"Oh God," he laughs without amusement, "I was just looking at you, not _that_."

He carries on staring at me though, dark, crescent eyebrows raised now; his face is familiar, but I can't-

I remember who he is, with a little start, and I remember that everyone has always said that a little bit scary, and unusual. I don't know him, but then, I don't think anybody knows him very well, not even the Slytherins. If I stretch my memory, he's the quiet boy who took a boat by himself over the lake in our first year, and who snapped at people and held the shortest conversations, and who was old-news before the first week was even out; I try and find the round face in this one though, and its very hard. The past summer has changed him – its made him broader, and more surly and even more frightening, but- but its made him sharper around the edges somehow; its made him stick out, like a sore thumb.

There is a long silence that he doesn't seem bothered by, but I hate awkward silences. I usually talk to fill them right up, except that I can't think of a thing to say to him. I test micro-conversations in my head, but I can't imagine holding any of them with him. I shift in my chair and the legs grind on the floor; squeak, silence, silence, silence, and Dad of course. I say the easiest thing when I can't stand it any longer, and the only thing that I think seems alright to say -

"I'm, uh, Lucy Weasley."

I decide not to hold out my hand.

"A Weasley who's in Ravenclaw?" he says coolly, but his silver eyes glint as they flick down to the blue crest on the front of my robes.

"Yes?" I bristle, "I can be both, you know."

"Oh, sure you can – its just a bit, well, you know..."

"No, I don't."

"I mean, they must have had an exorcism as soon as you got home! Isn't it like, against the rules or something, not to be sorted into Gryffindor?" he laughs, that humourless laugh again, but something in the tightness around his eyes makes me think that he's playing with me. I don't like to be played with, _at all_.

"Piss off," I snap, barely above a whisper.

"Touché," he says quietly, and turns to write something across the scroll of parchment in front of him, on the desk; his hand is sharp and narrow, and in the creased top-right-hand corner, his name shines in wet ink – _ Jaeger Black_. I think back to the sorting, when the same name was read out, back-to-front.

"Jaeger, and how do you pronounce _that_?" I ask silkily, and his hand moves quickly to fold the corner of parchment over, and then to score the fold between his thumb and forefinger.

"If you want to talk to me, I like Jack thanks," is his cold reply.

"Ah right," I sniff, turning away from him; he's- well, horrid really, and I don't want to talk to him any more. There is a small silence that stretches between us. I start to take notes, wanting something to do with my hands. I lose myself again, a little bit upset, and listen to the clock above the board tick me to the end of this stupid lesson, when -

"Deutsch, its pronounced 'yea-guh' – my dad wasn't brought up in this country," he- _Jack _says lightly. I can't help it, but my whole body sags with a sigh, and I smile weakly at him; I think he's saying sorry, in a way.

"I-"

"I don't want to be friends with you," he continues, and he's being very gentle, careful, "but you're nice, and I'm really not a- a git, you should know that."

He touches the Slytherin crest on the front of his robes, and he smiles; his round cheeks rise up and set his grey eyes alight, but its very brief. I'm not sure what to say, then, I'm saved by the bell.

"We start the practical work next lesson, so you had all better be ready," Dad discourses, as chairs scrape against the floor. Jack gathers up his things quickly. I try and make my thoughts go quickly because I want to answer him, but, how on earth do you answer something like _that_? I can't think of a single thing to say. He pushes the chair under the desk, and leaves. I watch his burly back move quickly to the door and disappear around the corner with the tide of classmates pouring onto the corridor.

"Lucy," Dad calls from behind me, and I look around to find that only me and him are left together, in the classroom. I scoop my things into my bag and hitch it over my shoulder, then go slowly to his desk. He leans eagerly forward in his chair as I reach him, and says in a breathless rush -

"How was I? Was it ok? Did they seem to like it? Did-"

"You did great, Dad," I sigh, and pat his arm, knowing full well that I've heard nothing of what he said; I don't feel guilty about this, only a little sad for him, with his eyes excited and wide as saucers as he pushes those horn-rimmed glasses of his further up his nose.

I think his lessons might be a bit more interesting though, now that I have someone new to talk to, or to argue with, I suppose. Jack Black is weird, and I love weird more than anything.


	4. Plum

_PLUM._

I get to the Great Hall for lunch, and I must be early because there are barely any people at any of the house tables, and the plates are set but empty. I don't like how loud my footsteps are on the flagstone floor, so I walk on my toes and I try to cross the hall as quickly as I can. Drew is sitting alone at the Ravenclaw table, and other than that, there are a small group of Hufflepuffs at the far end of the hall, not a single Gryffindor or Slytherin and Neville, no, _Professor Longbottom _at the staff table; I wave to him and he smiles back at me, but he looks tired, which is weird because Neville never looks weary. I wonder what's wrong with him as I sit down and slide along the bench. I knock into Drew on purpose -

"Do you know what's up with Neville, because he looks beat?" I ask him in a whisper; Drew is the sort of person who knows everything about everything. He doesn't answer me though, because he's staring hard at a long piece of parchment on the table in front of him; he holds up a hand as if to say 'just a moment' and keeps it there in front of my face. Oh, nice.

Ink shines on the parchment, and I try to make out the weird markings by narrowing my eyes. It looks like a crabbed diagram of the solar system, maybe.

"I think he's having a bit of trouble with the aconite, actually," he answers, but I've lost interest now.

"What are you doing, then?" I ask, pushing his still raised hand back to the table. He flicks his wand once, and the ink starts to crawl across the parchment, moving in circles; a second flick of his wrist, and scatters of dots move into place. I think they're supposed to be stars, constellations and planets.

"_Natural Divination,_" he scoffs.

"Oh?" I say slowly. I'm not entirely sure why this is a bad thing; the boys love Divination, and so they should because they're – I hate this word, and its one of those words that makes goose-pimples pop up across my skin – they're _seers_. I think its frightening, the way that they read dregs of tea like everyone else reads a book, and I've never once let them read my tea-leaves, _never_. They all think I'm weird for being this way, but I can't help it, that kind of thing just, well, freaks me out. It scares me when they try to tell me something about what could happen, but Tristan always says that its not like its such a big thing at his age anyway, because its like he's wearing Drew's glasses when he doesn't really need them; its all blurry and its probably a far cry from reality. I don't care what he says, its weird.

Drew lets the scroll furl into a tight roll, and casts it aside.

"You know what natural Divination is, right? Its like, what the universe is trying to tell you."

"Yes, and?"

"_This_," he says, brandishing the rolled-up scroll of parchment, "is a copy of the solar-system and a little bit further, not including all the stars, but most. I'm supposed to know the movements of things, and I'm supposed to- I'm supposed say why I think they move, and what that tells me."

His anxious eyes are magnified behind his thick, round glasses. I don't get it.

"I don't get it," I say. He looks at me over the top of his glasses, and sighs.

"Its just that, I don't really know what the universe is telling me, and I don't like it when I don't know things. Its so much easier to look into a crystal ball, than to say why Mars is bright."

So, that's it. I laugh as lunch rises up through the table, and pour myself a some pumpkin juice. I, a normal human being, worry about things like my pretentious dad, and bad weather and whether there will be roast lamb for dinner tonight, and here, Drew expects me to care that he can't see the future; God, whatever will he do?

"Welcome to the world the rest of us live in," I say sarcastically, but I pat his shoulder all the same; this is the kind of thing that sets him on edge. He rolls his hazel eyes and tosses the parchment back into his open bag, reaching for a bread roll.

"_Ha bloody ha._"

We go quiet for just a second and then laugh together, at ourselves. The Great Hall is filling up now, and Tristan flops onto the bench beside me as I butter a jacket potato; Amelia sits down opposite the three of us, and pulls as plate towards her. Food absolutely comes first, and then she looks up briefly to say something to me -

"So, how was Transfiguration, Lu?" she asks, before she pushes a heaped forkful of pie into her mouth. I think she expects to hear something really horrible, by the way she's staring so intently at me, but I don't have anything very horrible to say about it. I'm surprised at myself, because I kicked up such a fuss about it too, and, well, it really wasn't so bad. I smile, and my eyes cast themselves across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, and I swear, I have no control over them. I look back quickly, feeling hot around the ears, but none of them have noticed.

"Oh, it wasn't so bad," I say quickly and I hope to Merlin that my ears aren't red; I hate it when my ears go red. Amelia looks surprised, but then, I'm surprised at myself too. I think of something else to say because I don't want to sound suss. "Really though, it wasn't so bad- but- well, I guess we didn't do any wand-work today, so he doesn't know how bad I really am. Brilliant, I should look forward to next lesson, right?"

Amelia smiles grimly and leans across the table to whisper, loudly - "Well you know, there's hope yet – maybe you'll _accidentally _transfigure his face..."

I laugh a bit too loudly, and then they laugh at me laughing and soon we're not sure what we're laughing about any more. I've missed laughing for laughing's sake - it makes me feel all warm. After we've laughed at laughing at laughing, we laugh thinking about how facial transfiguration might possibly improve my dad. I love my friends, I really do.

"Oh but, don't singe his eyebrows, because then those glasses will make him look like a startled earwig..."

We all go quiet, and then -

"A _startled earwig_? 'melia, you weirdo." Tristan snorts, and flicks a pea at her. She only has to narrow her eyes and the pea slows, inches from her nose and drops to the table. I hate that she's so clever; I couldn't do wandless magic, even if I tried, especially if I tried.

"Well," I cough, trying to get my breath to come back after my little laughing-fit, "You should have seen the way his face transfigured when I told him that I wanted to study Care of Magical creatures and Astronomy at N.E.W.T; barely recognisable."

Tristan sobers up, and looks at me seriously. His hazel eyes pierce mine from beneath his mussed-up fringe; well, I thought it was funny.

"You know, you shouldn't let him stop you doing what you want to do; he's making you be who _he_ wants you to be."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I snap, looking down at my hands. I don't like to say it to them, but they're completely right – I'm a doormat, and that's the only reason I'm still taking Transfiguration and Charms, because they're, what was it, 'worthwhile subjects'. Yes. Just a single pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and I will be a real Weasley, Dad's kind of Weasley.

"Transfiguration wasn't so bad though, honestly," I tell them, willing them with my eyes to believe that I'm telling the truth, or at least, some part of it. "I had to sit next to this boy, right. Do you know him?"

I turn around and scan the Slytherin table for Jack Black, and then point him out; he's sitting alone at one end of the table. I think we stare for a little bit too long, because he turns around and catches us at it, like he can feel us looking at him. He looks surly, which is nothing new, and a little bit angry, which is quite frightening really.

We look away quickly, and there must be something in the air today, because we start to laugh again; when he's not staring at us any more, its a lot funnier. Tristan stops laughing first, and coughs -

"I do know him, yeah – from Ancient Runes, but he doesn't say very much, and he sits on his own, doesn't he 'melia? Merlin_, that_ was awkward - he's dead scary when he looks at you, don't you think?"

We're all laughing at him again, but then I stop, because I feel- I feel sorry for him, I think.

"Well, who wouldn't be pissed if they were being gawked at, I guess? I say evenly, and then I wonder why I'm bothering; its his problem, isn't it, if he wants to be a git, but then, I remember something he said; _I'm really not a- a git, you should know that_. Oh, who knows, really.

They're all staring at me, and I hadn't even noticed. I shake my head to clear it.

"Well, you know what I mean," I continue quickly. "Why doesn't he sit with the other Slytherins?"

"Who knows," Tristan shrugs, and with a devilish smile, "maybe he turned his other friends to stone when he looked at them. Honestly though, he's a bit of a lone-wolf, Lucy. I mean, he always has been."

I glance back again at his table, but he's left already. The others are talking about their lessons now, and the rest of lunch passes quickly; I say the right things, in the right places, but I don't really join in, because I feel a bit stumped. I stand up when the bell rings out for the end of lunch, and wordlessly wave them goodbye as they go up the stairs to the common room, for a free period together. I haven't been this quiet in a very long time.

As I head out across the grounds for my first Care of Magical Creatures lesson, I'm still thinking about him, and at the same time trying not to. I place one foot carefully in front of the other as I go, taking a very slow route. I'm not sure what is bothering me so much, but something is; its a feeling. I shake my head - no, I'm being silly.

I pick up my pace and stroll towards Hagrid's pinprick of a hut, and forget about everything; Magical Creatures await me, and that alone is the first thing to put a real spring in my step since I've arrived.

Two months pass in clear skies and cold winds that scatter orange leaves across the grounds.

I'm sitting there now, right at the edge of the forest on the lowest branch of a tall tree, swinging my legs back and forward and almost pitching myself into the piles of dried-up leaves, but not quite. I look down at my knees; they're scrubbed red and dirty, like the palms of my hands. I don't care really, though because I've always been a dusty and mucky kind of person.

Light spills into the little clearing and speckles across my bare shins. I come here all the time; in fact, I borrowed – in an I-stole-this-without-you-knowing-but-i'll-give-it-back kind of way - a huge saw from Hagrid's hut last year and finally cleared away some of the dead branches and foliage and made myself a squashed little oval-thing of space. The ground is dusty and cracked because we've not had any rain yet; I love the rain, so I feel a bit like the crusty, dry earth myself. The leaves are falling around me, little shrivelled organs that used to be plump and green. I catch one in my dirty fist and crush it.

I push my rolled up sleeves back over my forearms. September is done, and the wind is getting crisp, and colder and, like the seasons, Dad and me are entering into our autumn too; at least, this is how I choose to look at it. I came here this year, full of summer sun and now things are starting to fall away, dead. I was stripped of all my beautiful orange leaves the moment I picked up my wand, and dad saw me, just me - unless you're counting the poor kid whose earlobe I tied in a knot, because Dad most definitely saw him too. He laughed and told me that I must be out of practice, and I thought, _well, I think I've been out of practice my whole life, to be honest Dad_. I didn't say a word though, but I secretly hoped that he'd laugh always.

When I made Maria Townsend almost choke on a quill the next lesson, he didn't laugh at all. I really don't know how I managed that one, though. I tap the end of my wand, like I'm checking to see if its broken; its warm under my fingertip, so its just me then.

I don't think I can remember all the 'talks' I've had with my dad since that lesson, but they are all the same, every single one, and they go a little bit like this: '_Come over here a minute - what's going on, Lucy?'_, and I simply shrug, _'I think you just need to put in a bit more effort, then, yes?', _and I say that I'll try harder, _'yes, that's probably it_. _If you read this, and write me an essay on chapter 5; theory always helps you to focus', _and I nod and hold out my hands for the next sodding volume and when I leave I know that he's staring after me. I let him talk, because he's not very good at listening and I don't see what else I'm supposed to do.

I'm tired of it all though; I'm tired of being me and still not being good enough. I spit on my hands and rub them together until most of the dirt comes away.

There's something else too, there's Jack.

He doesn't talk to me any more, if he ever really did. The scary thing is though, I seem to have developed a kind of unhealthy obsession and the less he talks to me, the more crazy I get; I want to draw a real person out of the vegetable that I sit next to five times a week. He's subdued now, his scowl is deeper and he moves his chair right to the edge of the desk; I must have contracted some deadly, horrible and highly contagious disease. I should really get it checked out, in case, God forbid, he should catch it.

I don't get it. I can honestly say that we shared more words in the first week than we've shared put together in the last eight. Like, in our second lesson together, we talked easily and he even smiled a tiny bit when I tied Kevin's earlobe in a knot; I saw it - his round cheeks lifted up and set his eyes alight in a real smile, a beautiful smile really. It was like, I don't know, watching the sun rise for the very first time. Oh Merlin, I'm mad.

It doesn't matter though, the sun didn't come up again and the next lesson, his eyes were cold and tight and all we shared was a single 'hello'.

The less he talks, the more I imagine the things he might say, and the more I absolutely lose my mind. In the last lesson, he moved along the desk so much that he was almost tilting to the floor, and he tapped his foot the whole time, as the clock ticked him closer to the end of the lesson. He said 'bye' though, which is something new, because usually he just disappears, like the ground has swallowed him up.

I sigh, and swing backwards in an arc, so that I'm hanging upside down and gripping the branch under my knees. I stretch a hand into my bag, on the ground below me and pull out a roll of parchment and a self-inking quill to write with. I start, and drop them both when Plum clicks his keen beak at me.

"All right," I sing, and swing left a little bit so that I can pat him between the eyes; he's a Hippogriff foundling, that follows me around; Hagrid made him a sort of project for the class, and I am the class. His narrow, orange eyes stare at me, so I pull and upside-down face at him; he's at that funny stage, where he's not all fluff any more, but he's not all feather either, and little bits of burgundy everything stick out at weird angles, in weird places.

I can see the roll of parchment half-unfurled on the earth, and the quill, blown a few metres further away, and its hard to think because all the blood is rushing to my head. I can feel my cheeks and forehead turning red; I hate being red in the face. I straighten my arms, put one hand at either side of my head on the ground, and then let myself drop into a crouch on all fours. I'm crawling about, picking up my things so that I can start the horrible extension essay Dad's given me to do for my lesson, next period, when out of the corner of my eye, I see Plum start to grind his talons in the soil.

I look up quickly, and jump to my feet, with my things under one arm. I dust myself down, cheeks burning.

"What are you doing here? Oh, don't come any closer, or take off your fingers," I say sharply, as Jack takes a second step, into the centre of the clearing. His pale eyes are wary, and I see his adam's apple dip as he swallows. "_Bow_," I demand. It feels wonderful to be in control, for once. He sinks into a cautious bow. I fold my arms and watch Plum closely, to make sure that everything stays relatively calm; he's bristling and his fierce, orange eyes are half-closed. I don't think either of those things are a good sign, but the most important thing is that he isn't bowing.

"Ah, you should probably go-" I say quickly, but then I notice something weird. Plum isn't bowing, but he's not tearing the living hell out of Jack either. He's- he's doing something else entirely; moving _back_, behind me and into the cast of the tree's shadow. I frown at him.

"Well, that's weird."

I pull the sliver of apple-pie that I've folded in a napkin, from the inside of my robes and rub his beak as he comes forwards and snatches it from the palm of my hand. He moves it around on the floor under his talons, and I take a slow step in front of him. I don't want anything to get out of hand. Jack straightens up and stares hard at me.

I want to tell him to go away, but I don't.

"What?" I say, when he doesn't look away.

"What's weird, exactly?"

"Oh right, well, its nothing."

"_What is it_?" he snaps, and his eyes flash. I don't think I like being alone with him, in the forest.

"All right, don't pop a vein. Its only that- well- I know about Hippogriff's attacking people, or bowing to them, but I've never heard of one backing off. I guess I'll have to ask Hagrid when I see him next," I shrug, and then look him up and down. I can't help it – I start to laugh; I think I must be nervous because the sound wobbles.

"Oh, what now?" he hisses.

"Well I guess you must be extra scary," I snicker. He looks really angry for just a second, and then his face goes still again. I can read his face quite well now; I think I can tell when he's angry because his cheeks go flat and his lips go white; when he's happier, his eyes gleam and for anything between those two, his broad face hardly changes.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, moving to sit on the ground again. I feel better when I'm out of the sun that pours in through the open circle of sky over us, and in the translucent shade of the leaves. I rub Plum's beak and spread my parchment on the earth in front of me.

"I don't know," he says slowly. He walks to the edge of the clearing and breaks a branch from the tree. I frown at the thin snap, the sound of the forest breaking. He spins it between his fingers like he doesn't have a care in the world, and asks - "What are you doing?"

"I have to finish a Transfiguration essay for next lesson," I sigh, trying to frame my conclusion on the parchment; I close one eye and make squares over the page like I'm about to take a photograph, and I'm not sure why I'm doing it because it makes no sense. Defeated already, I cast the quill down and then throw myself to the ground and look up at the canopy.

"I didn't think we had any Transfiguration essays?"

I don't get why he's so keen to talk, especially now. I don't like being found here; its like someone is reading my personal diary. You can't take back your own words, and you can't take back places; he'll find me again, now. I sigh, and close my eyes so that I can watch the orange patterns flick beneath my eyelids.

"We don't," I tell him dryly. "This one is just for me."

There is a long silence. I keep my eyes closed and I listen to the sounds of the forest; the scatter of tumbling leaves, the snap of dead wood under Jack's feet, the wind whistling through the trees, and the scratch of Plum's Talons dragging over the soil. I listen to Jack's voice, low and rich -

"Lucy, its still looking at me."

Oh, for goodness sake. I lean up on my elbows and narrow my eyes, to see him through the sunlight. Its a good thing that I can't see him well, because the sun is casting long shadows over his face, or I wouldn't have dared say it -

"You know, I didn't ask you to come here, and you won't tell my how you got here, or why you came or- or, look – just go if all you're going to do is whine."

I roll onto my side and push my face into the feathers at Plum's arched neck; he smells like fresh pine-needles and the feathers tickle my nose.

"I heard you talking when I was- when I was walking in the forest," I hear him say, and I frown. I can't think why he would be walking in the forest because we're not supposed to do that. I press my ear to the earth and listen to the dull clump of rubber soles shake the ground. I'm sure that he's left, so I sit up again and rub my nose; he's not gone because I turn to find him sitting just a meter away, cross-legged and staring at me. "You've got a leaf in your hair."

I pick the leaf out of my messy strawberry-blonde hair, and nod as a thank you.

"What do you want, Jack?" I ask him wearily, when he doesn't say anything else. He looks down at his hands.

"I don't know, I- I wanted to talk."

_Oh, so now you want to talk_. I fold my arms over my chest and wait for him to 'talk', but all he says is - "why are you trying to tame a wild beast?"

"He's not a _wild beast_," I scoff, "and just because you don't like him doesn't mean that I can't."

"Do I make it obvious that I don't like him?" he says with a smile.

I shrug and take his wrist, and then I turn it over so that his hand is facing palm up; I hold my own up next to it, as if to say 'see'. He doesn't move as he stares down at our hands, that are as different as two hands can be, I think. His is wide and smooth, and my own is narrow and dirty and worked at the fingertips.

"Hands tell you everything; I don't think you like any magical creatures, or being outside that much," I tell him, and let go of his wrist. He rubs it and looks down at his palm. His face looks paler than it did.

"I don't like things being – being wild," he's says slowly, "I mean, there must be things that you don't like, because of a feeling?"

"I know that I don't like red-hair," I offer, with a half-shrug and he laughs at me. I've never seen him laugh before; his round cheeks lift up and his tight mouth stretches so that I can see both sets of straight, pearly-white teeth, and his eyes – his pale eyes glitter.

"Your dad has red-hair."

"Well, yes, me and my dad have a lot of problems – its not just the hair, though, I hate the hair."

"You should probably finish that essay then, or you'll have more problems."

I smile at him and pick up my quill again – this time, I will finish this thing. He watches me as I write; its really distracting. I pretend that he isn't there by closing my right eye so that he goes from my sight, but it doesn't really help. My sentences come slowly, and I turn to look at him again, because something's on my mind.

"Why don't you sit with anyone at Dinner?" I ask quietly.

"I'm a Slytherin - I don't need anyone else, do I? I don't want anyone," he shrugs and threads his fingers together.

"So what, you don't want anyone because you're a Slytherin, or you're a Slytherin because you don't want anyone?" I ask, with a frown.

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"No, they're completely different. You see, I'm either witty because I'm a Ravenclaw or I'm a Ravenclaw because I'm witty, and I should be a Gryffindor because I'm a Weasley which means that I can't be witty because I'm a Ravenclaw, I must be a Ravenclaw because I'm- I'm- oh no, wait, I lost what I was- I was trying to say... " I trail off and squeeze my eyes together as I try to remember the point I was making. It doesn't come to me.

"I don't get what you're trying to say. You think, what, that I'm not a Slytherin in here?" he jabs his chest with a thumb. "I am, because my Grandfather was too, so I have to be," he says coldly. I frown at what he's said, forgetting my forgotten point -

"I thought you said your dad was foreign, so, how do you have a Grandfather that was in Slytherin?"

He looks taken-aback, and then he says quickly -"Oh I- I did say that."

His pale eyes watch me for a second, like he's making up his mind about something and then he gets silently to his feet. He turns on his heel, driving it into the soil. I don't stop him as he walks away, without saying bye or even a look back, over his shoulder, because I can't find it in myself to play along any more. I see him break into a run through the trees, as soon as he thinks that he's shot of the clearing; I don't know what he's running from.

I throw my things into my bag and then throw my bag over my shoulder and walk slowly back to the castle; Plum follows at my heels until we break through the trees that edge the forest. I pat his beak once and then I set off with my head down, across the lawn. I steel myself as I go, for Transfiguration with Jack and with my dad; _wonderful_.

Rain begins to fall.


	5. Finger

_FINGER._

I sneak into Transfiguration while Dad is chalking the lesson objectives across the board. The room is silent as I walk quickly between the rows of desks and drop into my seat. At the side of me, Jack's seat is empty and I can't see why it should be because he left for the lesson before I did. I frown to myself as I lean over and pull my heavy Transfiguration textbook from my bag, then a sheaf of parchment and my bent, self inking quill; I try to straighten it and it snaps clean in two and ink splatter across the parchment, great. Ink pours along the little canals that are the lines on my hands, and I watch it go like running water; a quick _scourgify _charm makes the new landscape disappear. I look around to see that everyone is still copying from the board, but I don't think it makes a difference whether I do the same or not, because no amount of copying objectives will make me good at this subject. I stare at Roger; he looks pale and tired, next to an open window at the far side of the classroom, and then at Maria who is clicking her heels at the back because she's already written everything down, and -

I see Jack. Well then, it isn't that he hasn't come to the lesson, he's just taken another seat, far away from me. I narrow my eyes and stare at him over my shoulder, wanting him to look at me. He's looking pointedly at his hands. I do that thing, where if you stare at someone hard enough, they can feel you looking at them and he doesn't even look up. Its easy to tell when a person isn't looking at you on purpose, and I can tell when they just haven't seen you looking too, and Jack is absolutely doing the first; his face is angled so that his fringe falls over his pale eyes, and I just know that there can't be anything _that_ interesting on the back of his hands. I feel my stomach turn over with anger.

"Eyes to the front please, Lucy," Dad says severely, snapping his fingertips. I turn around in my chair and start to scrawl the lesson objectives across my spoiled sheaf of parchment. My hand shakes so hard around the half-a-quill, that I put a few holes through the page. I stop, then tear a strip away from the corner, and crumple the first page in my fist.

The quill quivers in my hand above the slip of parchment; I see red, I see the empty seat beside me. It was only a quarter of an hour ago, when we were sitting in the forest together and talking, I swear it. No wait, I'm imagining the whole thing, I've got to be imagining it; for the first time in my life, I wonder if I've gone completely mad. I shake my head quickly, and try to clear it. No, stop it, I know it – he was in the forest with me, he snapped branches and he told me that he didn't like things that were wild.

Oh God, I must have lost him again; no, not lost him, he's run away, except that this time he can't bear to even sit near me. I try to count backwards in my head, making the minutes add up and stretching my brain to work out where he went, and when he went. I see him breaking into a run as he leaves the clearing, and my fists squeeze together.

I like Jack, but I'm sick of this; I'm sick of him. I bring the quill to the parchment, raking the words across the page -

_Why the hell have you moved?_

I think that it gets the point across quite well. I pause over the paper as I roll the words '_what is wrong with you' _around in my mouth, but I decide against them because I don't think that they'll help, really. He starts, as I send the sharply folded slip of parchment spinning over the heads of my classmates and it drops into his lap. I don't want to watch him pick it up, so I turn back the the front.

It comes back to me when Dad is busy describing the process of animal Transfiguration, and so he doesn't notice it dip over my shoulder; neither do I until Cathy, sitting at the desk next to mine, points it out to me. I silently thank her, and carefully unfold the parchment. I don't know what I'm expecting to find, but my head dreams up long paragraphs that say sorry, and excuses that seem obvious to me when I think of them; there is a single sentence written in a neat, sharp hand, in reply -

_I don't want to talk to you right now._

I crumple the parchment in a single hand, feeling sick and sad and _furious _all at the same time. I don't this, and I don't want to believe that he's as horrible as I think he wants me to believe he is. The words in my head fight over each other and I forget what I was thinking, and then I remember it; what I think, is that he thinks he's talked too much to me, and that now he needs to make up for it.

Well, _Merlin_, I just don't care any more.

I'm trying to think of a reply, if there is a reply you can give when a person says something like that to you, when his voice speaks quietly from the back of the classroom -

"I don't feel very well Professor, can I please go to the hospital wing?"

Dad turns to squint at the far end of the classroom, as says brusquely - "Ah Jaeger, yes-yes, of course."

I absolutely refuse to look as he leaves the classroom. I just lay my forehead on the desk and listen to Dad as he tries regain the train of thought that he was following. A chair scrapes along the floor and I hear the lone little click as the door closes behind him.

This is all just bloody fantastic.

In the evening, I leave the common room in my shabby patchwork slippers and navy dressing-gown; I'm supposed to be patrolling the main seventh-floor corridor, but I'm not going to do that. I'm doing the patrol alone because Roger isn't very well, so I want to make it less of a patrol, and more of a late night hot-chocolate call to the kitchens.

I've had a bad day, and I'm not in any mood to do much else tonight.

I walk slowly and swing my arms backwards and forwards. The sleeves of my dressing-gown fall over over my hands and the hem flaps around my ankles; its one of my dad's and it buries me like a long, winter cloak. The corridor is dark and cold and quiet, except for the soft flop as my slippers touch the flagstone floor. I like the castle at night because its like a different place. The long shadows and the low orange light of the torches set in brackets along the stone walls make me feel like I'm in a story-book, like there are dragons in the dungeons and girls with long, corn-silk hair in the towers, and I am just a ghost.

I take a long route across the seventh floor, so that I look less suss because I feel like a criminal. I take a turn here, left there, through an old tapestry passage, and I'm at the last turn, before I can scout down the marble staircase, when I see someone else.

"_Lumos,_"I whisper, as I pull out my wand, and hold it up. Yellow light pours out from the tip and makes the shadows of lines of suits of armour spill across the walls, along the flagstone floor. I narrow my eyes trying to make-out the shape that's moving quickly back along the corridor. He stops and turns, and so do I, as the light from my wand spills in a funny kind of spotlight across his face.

"_What are you doing here_?" I call across the width of the corridor. He curses under his breath and tries to move out of the light, tries to hurry off, but I make the spotlight follow him; he steps to the side and I flick my wrist that way, he steps back and I lift my hand higher He curses again -

"Oh for God's sake, go away Lucy."

I let my wand-arm drop, but I move in front of him and I put my face in his face. I am going to say what I want to say to him and whether he likes it or not he can bloody well listen. I grab his shoulder and push him in the chest. I can't see, for all the red -

"I think I hate you," I hiss.

He moves back from me, and flicks my hand away from his shoulder. I can't read his face because its in the shadow, but I don't care what his face says any more. I press him hard into the wall, so hard that I can feel the rise and fall of his chest; its too quick. I want to hurt him and I want to press harder; I don't know what I want, so I talk because the conversations that are still in my head, the ones I've been having with myself all day, are the only sane things I have left.

"I don't know what it is," I say quickly, because the words are starting to go from my mind. Jack is still as stone between me and the wall, like he's not there at all; he's warm, really warm. I look up into his dark face, trying to think and I feel his arms move to the small of my back, in surrender maybe. I carry on pleased, remembering what I was going to say as my body sighs - "and I don't know what you want from me, but this is what I know- no, _listen to me_- I know that when you stop being what you think you should be, and a- a git, only even for a second, I feel like I know who you are, or like- like I'm getting closer to it, and I r-"

There are times, small passing seconds, where when you toss a coin, you see it spinning in the air; you watch the sun shine on the metal, brass, copper, silver flicking, and you wait on it. It's the only way I can think of to describe those fleeting seconds, microseconds before he got hold of me. I was saucy when I threw up the coin, said what I said, I was biting and I held him hard against the wall while I waited for it to stop turning. It's faces spun round and round and stopped on an ugly turn I didn't like. In those seconds I couldn't see his face, but I can see it now, and I want to take back that I ever threw it up at all. I said something he didn't like.

The coin, behind my eyes, stops spinning and falls with a click on the stone.

"_Piss off_!" he growls, and he spins me around sharply. I don't know what's happening until he forces my arms up above my head and pushes me against the wall; my shoulders crack on the stone and the all the wind goes from my chest. I cough, and I'm frightened, and I try to catch my breath and wrestle with him and cry all at once. His fingers are pressed tight around my forearms, it hurts. My lips form the words '_I'm sorry_' but I don't know what I've said or what I've done, I just want to make it right again; I want him to let go of me. One slip, one burst temper, and I'm seized and held hard.

"_Jack, please,_" I cry, tears sliding over my cheeks. The tip of my wand is still glowing, where the dark length of wood is wrenched above my head and pinioned tight in my hand; shafts of yellow light break across his face. I look at him, and I stop moving and catch my sobs in half their sound, because his face is different.

I've never been more scared.

His skin is sallow and has a look about it, like its been stretched as tight as it can over the angles of his face; its waxy and sweat glistens on his forehead, on his lip, at his temples. I look into his pale, silver eyes, that are dull like iron now, and half-closed. His eyelashes keep dropping to his cheeks, and flicking back up again, and I see his angry eyes stare right into me, when they do. I love his round cheeks when they set his eyes alight in a smile, but they're flat and hollowed now, and his beautiful, glossy hair is damp, in sticky clumps that cling to his temples, and to the nape of his neck.

My arms are hot, and stinging, but I keep quiet. I don't know who this monster is.

"I want you to leave me alone, Lucy," he says darkly; it sounds like a plea, and it sounds like a threat. His breath comes in short gasps and I start to buck again, trying to get away. I don't know what he wants to do with me, but I want to run, far. You act, you don't think when you're frightened, and some feral part of you takes you over. I close my eyes and flap like I'm in a fit.

I come to myself again, when it's over. It ends like a flash, like lightening without thunder, and his hands fall away from me. I stop moving and I look at him, watch his eyes go wide as saucers; my knees are shaking, and my arms sting but the fawn that just sprang and scattered from the gun, can't move now because it feels like it's caught in headlights. I watch as he passes a shaking hand over his face -

"Oh God, I'm so sorry," he says hoarsely, just a whisper in the darkness, and then he turns and starts to run away down the corridor, head hanging like a beaten-dog.

The Ravenclaw girls' dormitory is empty, and every one of the five beds is empty, with the duvets raked back and crumpled. Its late morning and they've gone down to breakfast, but I haven't.

This is weird, because I'm always up earlier than everyone else is, so that I can have my walk beside the lake, my dawn air that's crisp as an apple and dew under my feet. I'm not getting out of bed today though, at least not yet. I made it look like I was was still sleeping as they all got ready at around nine o'clock, breathing really deeply but not quite snoring, and tossing around a bit under the covers; I must have made it look quite authentic, because they left me quietly enough, even though I could see beneath my eyelashes that Amelia paused to look at me, at the door.

Its twelve o'clock now, and I'm sitting in the window, looking out on Hagrid's pin-prick of a hut and hugging my knees to my chest. I haven't even noticed the morning disappear. My eyes have been staring, but in that way, where you don't see anything but the inside of your own head; if I looked, and really looked, then I would see the peaks of mountains and the sloping hill, the green lawn and the tall trees that run away long into the distance. I only see red, though, like seeing the glow of the sun through the skin at my temples. I look at my watch. I give it a really cold look, because the time is running away with the moving hands and I want it to stop or go much slower.

I think that Amelia will come back as soon as her lunch-time Quidditch practice is finished, and she'll check on me. I have until then, at least and I don't want to go from the dormitory. I don't want to see anyone and I don't want them to see me. I get up slowly and start to make the beds, all around the room just to keep my hands busy.

The thing is, I feel like people will just know, as soon as they look at me; its a weird feeling, like I've shrunk and grown bigger all at the same time. The stairs stare at me through the open door, and I laugh at myself but I go to close it all the same.

It clicks shut really quietly, like someone might cluck their tongue. I stand facing it for a second because I don't know what to do next, and then I pull back the long sleeves of my top; I can't stop looking at my arms, and I can't stop feeling sick looking at them. Its like when there's a dead bird in the road, all bloody, and you don't want to look at it but you keep looking anyway because you can't help yourself, even though it makes you screw up your eyes and your stomach squeeze. I roll up the cotton slowly, so that each sore, purple mark appears in turn, like the rungs of a long ladder on my forearm; marks made by his fingers. I can deal with the dull ache under my spoiled skin, and I can deal with sharpness of my breath, but I stop breathing all together when his sickly face comes into my mind again. I can't think about it and I can't help thinking about it; I feel sick, and tear my sleeves back down my arms, like I've done so many times this morning, no, this afternoon now. The bruises disappear and I pretend they're not there at all.

I move away from the door and sit on the edge of my bed, look at me knees. I hate everything, no wait, that's not it – it all hates me. A shout comes up the staircase and stops behind the door, but I ignore it.

I feel hot and angry, I feel tired. I feel the tick of my watch like its inside me, like I'm a time bomb.

I make up my mind to sleep a bit more, even though I've been sleeping with my eyes open all morning, and just as I turn to pull back the duvet, I hear someone clear their throat from the door. I don't know who it is, but I think of Grace, or of Kerry, and I think of them staring, staring, staring at me. The person doesn't say anything else, so I turn around slowly, making sure that my sleeves haven't ridden up, as I do.

I feel my whole body sigh when I see that its Tristan, and I don't care that it looks like the earth has thrown him upside-down in the middle of the open doorway, but I am a bit stumped by it; he's hanging in mid-air like he's been strung from the ceiling by an invisible rope. We stare hard at each other for a minute. I look at his dark hair hanging on end, and his red face and at his smile that's a frown that's a smile.

"What are you doing, Trist?" I laugh, laying back on the bed. I laugh up at the ceiling. The sound is hollow and booms in my chest.

"Oh, well," he says in a funny way, like he's talking through his nose. It must be because all the blood is running to his head. "Drew levitated me up, because, you know, we were a bit worried about you."

I stop laughing when I remember that I don't have much to laugh about. Tristan pauses, his breath stops, like he wants me to say something, so I say -

"Ok, well I'm coming down now, all right?"

He hangs there quietly as I get up from my bed, really sad to leave it, and walk slowly to the door; one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. I push him all the way back down the girls staircase, with one hand on his chest, and tell him that he shouldn't levitate himself into girls' dormitory's, but I don't say a thing about why I was still up there. He waves a big hand at me and laughs, but he keeps a keen, upside-down, hazel eye on me too. I pretend that everything is normal.

His face is beet-red by the time I give him a last push, right into the common room. He gasps -

"OK, Drew, let me down now 'cause I can't feel my face any more. She's with me, she's with me."

Drew's face appears over the high-back of one of the big, navy armchairs. He flicks his wrist and Tristan drops to the carpet in-between us with a heavy thump. I stand there as he looks me up and down, his big, hazel eyes move from my face, to my skinny ankles, to my hands hanging at my thighs.

"God Lu, are you ill; did you even sleep? You look terrible," he fusses, all concern. Tristan slaps his ankle from the floor, but I think he's probably right, though I wouldn't know for sure because I didn't feel like looking at myself in a mirror, today.

"I'm feeling fine," I lie, reaching down to hand Tristan up. "I just didn't sleep that well last night, and I was going to get some sleep just then, until _you_ came up."

I fold my arms over my chest, thinking that I can cover up whatever it is that I need to cover up, some look about me that they can see, maybe, by acted like I'm pissed with them. They share a worried look that I can see, clear as day, and don't look even bothered by my temper. Tristan bends down to dust his jeans, and I can see him looking up at me through his fringe; they don't believe me one, little bit.

I let my arms fall and sigh a little, breathy sigh; I'm too tired to play games. Drew moves over a little bit in his armchair as I go to sit on the arm. I look at up at the ceiling and don't say anything, because I can't think of anything that I can say to them, without them saying things like _Oh Lucy, I'm sorry _or _where is he? _or _we'll make it right, don't worry_. We stay quiet like this, for a while.

"Want to talk about it, then?" Drew asks me gently, after a few minutes pass by without anyone saying anything. I don't feel like talking any more than I did five minutes ago.

"No, thank you."

He pats my arms and even though its just a soft, little pat, my teeth clamp together; I don't think either of them notice, though.

"What about some breakfast, then?"

"It'll be over by now, won't it?"

"Breakfast is never over when you know where the Kitchens are, is it?" Tristan says brightly, and I can't help but smile at his big, sunny face. I let them pull me up, a hand each. "Good because, I really fancy a mug of hot chocolate."

I come to the kitchens a lot, because I like hot-chocolate and the house-elves like to make big cups of it for me.

I sit on the bench in exactly the same place that I sit on the bench in the Great hall, because I like to imagine that there is another Lucy, from another world, that's sitting a floor above me and eating the things that I like to eat; but she's not me, she's like, a ghost of me. I chew on a slice of toast and the boys flank me, one on each side, like I'm famous. We talk together for a long time, no, they talk and I listen, they laugh about stupid things and I laugh along with them. I do feel a lot easier about myself, with them here, though.

They talk and I watch their lips move but I don't hear them; I start to think about things like I'm another person, looking into my head from outside of me. The things I watch back, like they're on a big moving portrait inside my head, look funny when I look at them this way, they don't make a lot of sense. The thing is though, its not the same kind of not-making-sense as it was before, like it was when I sat on my bed this morning; I couldn't think right then, but now my thoughts have straightened out and it makes even less sense. So, its not something that I'm throwing all out of proportion in my head, its something that I'm missing.

I'm missing something really important, and when I find it out, then everything about last night will make sense.

I just have to make myself talk to him, ask him, or no – he'll come to me and tell me everything about everything himself, if he's any kind of decent; I don't think he's just some common-thug, so, he'll have to come and say sorry, really say sorry and say _why_. I breath out, a long steady breath and I think,_ I've got to be right_. _Yes, I'm right_.

I settle into the bench again, and look down as Tristan and Drew trade their teacups across me, teacups that only have tea-leaf dregs clinging to the bottoms; I'm used to this, and lick the butter off of my toast as I watch them twist each others tea-cups this way and that. I like the way they tilt and spin the cups, like their fingertips can hunt along some hidden level of knowing things, that's poised in the air, that I miss. I try to catch the way their fingers move, fast, left, left again, right, a full spin, but the movements run into each other and I lose them. I can't divine anything like they can, but I don't care because I like not knowing when something is going to happen, and I like pretending that things can change. Drew says that its because I'm too blunt, I'm thick skin through and through, and that's why I can't do it.

"OK, fortune, Trist," Drew murmurs, looking at a soggy clump of tea-leaf like its something beautiful. I look down into the cup and all I see is a soggy tea-leaf that looks ugly, really, like you'd expect old tea to look. Tristan looks up briefly, from his own cup -

"I bet I find another penny or something," he laughs.

"It tells you if you're going to find a penny?" I ask sceptically, and arch an eyebrow at him. He frowns at me, bringing the cup closer to his chest like I've insulted it, or something.

"Oh Lu, fate doesn't only work for the big things, you know. It's everything from the way you die to what you'll have for breakfast tomorrow. Even the smallest, minutest thing you can think of is down to fate, at the end of the day," he smiles at me, but the soft look in his eyes makes me think that I could get up and leave, and he'd carry on talking to me like I was there; he's like a little fish, caught up in the current he calls fate, and I call the unknowable future. "Its weird; people forget about the little things that make up the big things. I mean, Its obvious if you think about it, that if a little thing changes just a little thing and then another one, then it changes a big thing, in the end. Oh, you'll lose something, Drew."

They carry on in the same way, telling each other about things that are going to happen, and I sit quietly between them and let everything go right over my head; after five minutes or so, their hands stop turning the cups, like the air has turned solid, and they put them down on the table. I think, maybe they know all their old tea-leaves by name.

"I don't think you can ever quite know, how much, how very, _really _much, I hate John Davies!" we hear Amelia's voice, sharp and annoyed, and turn around to look at the door. She shoulder-barges into the kitchen, and stamps between the tables.

"You hate him now," I tell her with a short laugh, as she throws herself down onto the bench , "but you'll love him when you win the cup."

She looks me up and down, and pats her hair, that's turned to a mad kind of afro-frizz -

"_We,_ Lu, 'when _we_ win the cup' – you're a Ravenclaw too, you know."

I wave a hand at her; she's knows that I don't give a toss about who wins Quidditch.

"You look all right now, don't you. So, what was up this morning?"

"Oh, I don't know, just things," I say quietly.

"Right, with your dad?"

Well yes, that sounds about right, I think. Thank you, Amelia; why didn't _I_ think of that.

"Yeah, that's it."

She stretches over the table to rub my shoulder, and I smile easily at her. I look right into her long face, into her dark eyes.

Its easy to smile really big, and pretend that its all ok.

We go back to the common-room because its raining outside, and I let the day pass me by, like when you want to ask someone for directions, when you're lost, except the only person there to ask looks shady, so you walk on like you know where you are and just let them pass by. I let today pass me by because I don't like the look of it.

I let it pass, until it stops dead at dinner, like someone's put a cork in the middle of a huge hourglass. It stops because Jack isn't at dinner. I think he's hiding, like a coward and it makes me uneasy.

I think I'm going mad.


	6. Sent

_SENT._

Amelia is sitting across from me on the blue-bronze bed-sheets; she does that thing, where she sticks out her bottom lip when she concentrates, and her left foot moves up and down, up and down where its crossed under her knee. Its only just evening, around six o'clock I think, but the sun is already casting the lawn that sooty orange colour, like its about to slip into one of the valleys outside the grounds. I lean in, with my head almost touching hers as we pour over the long scroll of parchment that's unravelled across the bed. The dormitory is empty, other than us.

"I don't think so 'melia, I'd just keep it defensive – so, I think, like, arrow-head. You've got scope to do _that_, and then if you get desperate, you can get reckless. I don't think it'll get that bad, though," I say steadily, but I chew on my tongue like I want to bite back on the things I'm saying; really, I don't trust myself. I pause for a long time, then -

"If maybe, Moore moves like- this," I touch the paper, and then move my fingers across and down, pretending that I've dipped my hand into a real game, and that my fingers are Moore on his old broomstick.

"_Right_, OK – so then, you mean that Fawcett flies below," Amelia carries on, but my lips move with the sound. I stop and let her steal my words, and smile. "He catches Quaffel when she feints, and scores himself - _brilliant_."

I feel my ears redden, but in a warm sort of way, in pleasure.

"That's it, and as long as he goes really quick, then Flint won't get a broom in edgeways."

"Yeah, _speed_, right. I reckon they'll really like this, Lu."

"Good," I smile, "I want them to win."

"_You_, are wonderful, and a tactical phenomenon; they'll love you," she sighs, staring hard at the parchment, like she's drinking up the figures, in wet ink, with her eyes.

"Oh, don't tell them its me, 'melia!"

"God, you always say that - I don't get you."

"I don't know, tell them- tell them that Gods of Quidditch come to you in, in -_strange _dreams and tell you things," I laugh, and fall back on the pillows.

"Oh, _sure_, because that's normal, absolutely."

"Well, I just don't like them to know its me, all right?"

I feel like maybe, one of those people, those quiet people that no one really sees, until they've died; like the sort of people that become saints_. _I don't like people to stare at me and I don't like the limelight, so I think that once I've died, then people can start to read my name in places and I'll be too cold and white to blush about it; I want there to be stories about _Lucy, the fantastical explorer _or _Lucy, and the dragon, _but while I'm here I'd like to be me, without the spotlight, or the soundtrack.

"You know, your cousins don't know what they're missing out on," Amelia smirks, rolling up the parchment and tucking it into the inside of her robes, as she ties her bandanna more tightly around her head, over her frizzy, bohemian curls. I lean up on one elbow so that I can give her my most serious look –

"I think its better that way."

I can't get her to look at me, because her eyes have stopped, cast down, and she hasn't even listened to me. I watch her dark eyes narrow, her neck bend forward to look at, what? _Oh God, _I think, when I look down too, and see that my loose, cotton sleeve has slipped down to the crease of the elbow that I'm leaning on; all the glory of the slanted bruising that ladders the skin on my forearm, is exposed, like a dirty secret. I quickly pull the cotton to my wrist, but her tight eyes carry on staring at my arm.

"What _is_ that, Lu?" she asks.

"O-oh," I laugh awkwardly, and fold my arms over my chest. Amelia looks up, and stares at me, hard, "_that_. I just- just had a bit of a scrap with Plum yesterday, but nothing to worry about, ha! It- uh- happens. Oh, 'melia, you'd better go or you'll be late for Quidditch practice, its past half-six!"

The words are sharp and loud all at the same time, fast and garbled, but I breath as her hand flies to her forehead - "Oh, you're right, God!"

My whole body sags in a sigh, in relief as Amelia jumps up from the bed, and throws herself down on her hands and knees, hands raking through her open trunk, on the floor. She pulls out her broomstick and holds it up like its a trophy. I watch her dash off down the stairwell, and as she disappears, she calls over her shoulder– '_and Hagrid should stop letting you run loose with bloody monsters!_'

I wave weakly, and as my hand drops, slip off the bed-sheets. I stand there at the side of the bed for a second or two, just wanting to crawl between the sheets, but no - I have an essay on Charms to finish, and then I have to go to the astronomy tower for my very first lesson of the week; I have no time for myself.

I pass by the long mirror that hangs on the wall between my own four-poster bed and Kerry's, and look at myself in the glass, in the low lamplight. I haven't looked at myself in a long time; my strawberry-blonde hair is growing out, flicking at the tips, but it still looks all right. I rumple it under my palm, so that it sticks up and frames my thin face like a badly shorn mane, and that makes me feel better, feel wild. I lean closer, looking at the the circles, new, under my peat-coloured eyes that are shot through with amber. I want to know when I started to look so- tired; I want to know what happened to me.

I let my eyes drop, and lift up my arm to see it reflected in the mirror. It goes limp where I hold it at the elbow, like a dolls arm, like the thin arm of a of a puppet, without string. The slanting bruises have disappeared around the edges, and all that's left is the soft, mouldy centres; they hurt less than they did yesterday, and they only look dirty now, not sore, purple.

I let my arms drop and turn away from the mirror. I'm at the end of the weekend, looking back, and its passed quickly and quietly; I ate hardly anything, talked less and searched for Jack harder than I've looked for anything in my whole life, even when I tried to find a freckle. There were so many times that I thought I'd seen him, once across the great hall, out in the grounds, or in the corridors or in the Library, but I hadn't; I'm going stir crazy, I must be.

I make excuses, I say things to myself, like –_ we keep missing each other _or _he might be training hard for the match against Ravenclaw_, because Jack is the Beater and Captain, so I think maybe he's pacing his team, even through dinner, maybe, maybe. Really though, I don't think so.

The truth is that he's avoiding me, I'm sure he is; coward, coward, _coward. _

I snatch a roll of parchment from my bag and cast it onto the bed, then throw a quill down alongside it and a bottle of ink and finally a slender volume on Charms. I stare at them, breathing hard. The anger is a flash , hot and sharp like a match striking, but as I move over to the bed, a slow tear or two spill from the corners of my eyes. I feel them run over my cheeks and I taste them at the corners of my lips. I stand there, and I don't even lift up my hands to wipe them away.

I have this- this hollow feeling, like someone has carved out my stomach and then put an anchor in it's place. I lean forward, and try to forget, forget his anger, and his narrow eyes, and everything that he's done, but I can't. I'm terrified of him, and I want him all at the same time.

There is something worse, and its that I don't even like myself any more, I'm sick; I feel like a broken toy, with the stuffing pulled loose.

I hold onto one last thing, clutching at straws; tomorrow. I let tomorrow fill me up because there will be lessons tomorrow, and I'll see him in the lessons and we'll talk, and everything will make sense again; I have it all planned out. Then, I'll think about normal things again, like the upcoming Quidditch match, Transfiguration and the trip to Hogsmeade. I'm sure that this weekend will crawl into a shadowy place and leave me alone, and then maybe Jack will too.

I sit up, and reach over to unscrew the top of my bottle of ink. I pull the roll of parchment onto my knees and spin the quill in my fingers, when the door is pushed open; Kerry and Grace step in, arm in arm and laughing together, about something nice, and normal. I know my cheeks are wet, and I think my eyes are red too, but Kerry looks at me before I can turn my face away. I smile at her, weakly.

"Oh, you don't look very good," she says and sucks in her breath, great. I look at the sandy hair that she's plaited across her forehead, and not into her small eyes; I can't look into her eyes, because I'll see something I don't want to see, that's how it works.

"Mmm, its all right," I reply quietly, and try to smile again, but its all teeth and no cheek. "I'll feel better in the morning, I'm sure, when I've slept."

She nods to me, and moves on. _Yes_, I think, flicking open my textbook to a chapter on _advanced summoning charms_, _it'll be OK in the morning, like forgetting a bad dream._

It isn't ok in the morning, because Jack doesn't sit next to me Transfiguration; he isn't even in the classroom.

"_Lucy_," Dad calls to me over the ringing bell, when the lesson is over. I look up from where I've been staring at the wooden desk, and that's what I've been doing all lesson. His hand waves me over as he rakes through the drawers of his desk, top, second-to-last, top again. I get up and go to him slowly, like I'm walking through water; he wants to drop another stack of homework into my arms, I'm sure, but I don't care about that now.

"That's it, pull up a chair," he says seriously, when I get to him, and that's when my ears perk up and I stare at him, because he wants to_ talk_. I watch him take off his glasses, as I reach for a chair, and polish them on his sleeve. I sit down and when he puts them back on, he looks at me worriedly.

"What is it, Dad?" I ask quiet, cautious. I lean forward and put my elbows on his desk, as he sits back in his chair.

"Oh, sit up Lucy, I want to talk to you properly."

I sit up, as straight as I can and stick out my chin; I feel like a soldier in rank. We sit facing each other for a long time, while he nods his head and strokes his thinning red hair and shuffles the sheaves of parchment that he has taken from one of his desk drawers, clicking them against the wood until they are perfectly straight; each, I can see, has my name scrawled in it's right-hand corner. I look at my name, in my own crabbed handwriting, written over and over, and sink back in my chair, thinking nothing but_ oh boy_.

"Look, I'm really trying to work with you here, Lucy," he sighs, fanning the scrolls of parchment across his desk and pointing at each one with a long finger. "but you're just not getting any better; average, average, _below average_ ."

"Right, and what would you like me to do?" I bite out, angry; God knows I'm trying, I'm doing everything I can to make him look at me like his daughter. I clamp my teeth together, and say through them - "You know I'm doing everything that you're telling me to do, and I still can't do it, Dad! I've done heaps more than everyone else in this damn class and -"

"Language please," he says sharply, looking stern. I stop talking, like I always have to do in the end, and let him carry on, earnestly. "Your sister could do it and so will you – you're in Ravenclaw for heavens sake, you're not incompetent! I'm your teacher and its a lucky thing because I'm not about to let you flunk your most valuable class.

"Now, here it is – the only reason you're not learning is because you're still not trying hard enough-"

I open my mouth to tell him hotly, that Molly isn't like I am, she's a genius, and that I _am_ trying. He doesn't even let me speak – he just speaks louder as I sit forward in my chair and waves his hand at me. I close my mouth.

"I know that you _are _trying, but you're spending much too much time off gallivanting in the forest with unicorns and with Hagrid. Yes, I think I know my own daughter; she's a prefect, and she's intelligent and she _will _pass Transfiguration, when she stops _wasting _her time trying to tame beasts!"

_Right._

I don't say anything as I stand up, and move back, to push my chair under the desk that I took it from. I look at the back of the chair for just a second, and then I turn and stare at him; my fingers shake as I move them to unpin the prefect badge from the front of my robes, and all I say as I cast it across his desk, where it falls in with all my _average_ work, quiet but all the more dangerous for it, I think, is this -

"You don't know me at all then, Dad."

I step into the girls' dormitory in the evening, and look over at my bedside cabinet to see that he's given me back the badge, and polished it too. It glints, winks at me and it lies there on top of a neat slip of paper, on top of a bigger one. I walk slowly over to my bed, and stretch over it for my badge, and the paper; there are instructions for another Transfiguration essay, and the slip of paper is a note from Dad, that says -

_I hope you've thought seriously about what we discussed today_.

Amelia comes over and looks over my shoulder. I turn my head and watch her eyes flick from right to left. She curses, sharp and breathy, and takes the badge from the palm of my hand.

"I just- I can't believe him!" she cries, throwing my prefect badge into my trunk, where it gets buried in a pair of my old robes. I look down at my empty hand, not even caring; Amelia swears loudly, and again, but my ears feel hot and I can't hear. She said a lot of bad things when I told her before, but now it's worse, and I don't know where she thinks them up. I don't swear, or throw things, because all the fight has gone from me.

I let her to it, and get into bed without any fuss, pulling the sheets over my head; I cry quietly until I can sleep, and Amelia leaves me alone.

Its been a hard day, and Jack wasn't at dinner either.

Wednesday comes, and I still haven't seen him; I feel sick for it. I'm beginning to think that I imagined it, and I have to pull back my robes all the time and look at my arms, just to remember it all. In the night, I dream about it too, and I wake up thinking that it was j_ust a nightmare_, and for a second I breath easily, but only for a second; its as real in the morning sun as it is in my dreams, I know.

In the morning, I sit sandwiched between Tristan and Drew, because Amelia is at Quidditch practice, and eat buttered toast that slides down my throat like old carpet, for breakfast. Tristan is throwing together a last minute homework project with the dark-haired, freckled Grace on his right, and they've pushed the breakfast dishes away to clear a space on the wood. I eat with my back pressed up against Drew so that I don't get in their way, and watch him work; his hair is sticking up, his eyes are red and tired, and there is absolutely not way that he's going to get this thing finished, I think.

Drew spoons cereal into his mouth, and talks to me about his Divination class after breakfast. I pretend to listen, like a good friend.

"... so Firenze said that he would take us out for a lesson at night, some time, so that he can tell us how to look for the stuff in the phases of the moon, and in the stars. That won't be until its clearer at night though, maybe after Christmas. Its cool though, right?"

I nod, trying to make my eyes look like they belong to a person who is listening, but there is a strange prickling under the skin on my neck as he speaks to me, and its really distracting. I scratch it, but nothing happens. I turn my head, thinking that someone must me looking at me, because its that sort of feeling.

They are, and my heart stops, dead.

I see him there, sitting on the wooden bench and merely a half-a-hall's width away from me; staring, staring, staring. His round face softens like hot wax when he sees that I'm looking back, and his eyes flash, sweet silver and relief. I stare back, but only long enough to see him half-raise his hand and then I spin back around, breathing hard.

I don't know why I feel so ill, so sick. I close my eyes; this is what I _want_, I want to see him, but, no- I don't want it, my body stops when I look at him. _Want _is something I can feel, like, a need for him, but now that I can see him too, now that's he's there, there is something else too, something worse.

_Fear_.

I feel my finger shake, and my heart tremble and squeeze. The back of my neck has turned damp, and it prickles like there are needles in my skin. I breath out, in, out. I think I know what it is; now that he's here to see, I can't separate the real Jack, my Jack, from the one I see in my nightmares and in that dark corridor in my head. I grip the wooden table, scared that he's going to come to me and talk to me, even if some sane part of me wants him to those things. I get hot in my robes, the bench is too hard and the Great Hall is much, much smaller now; _when did everything shrink_?

I stand up from the bench, and Tristan looks up at me with a frown, but Drew's great, magnified eyes go from my white face to Jack, and back.

"Are you alright, Lu?"

"Fine," I cough, but my voice is low and breathy. "Do you two mind if I go with you to- to divination – I have a free now, anyway."

All I know is that I don't want to be on my own, where Jack will come and find me. I want to see him, but I want to hide from him too. I need to _run._

_Oh God_, what's wrong with me?

"Oh, sure," Tristan agrees, getting up too. "Firenze won't mind - its only us two anyway. You look terrible though, Lu - maybe you should go to the hospital wing instead?"

"No, that's OK, but can we leave – please?"

He nods, and we go together. I grip Tristan's arm, and I don't look back, though I almost want to - not once.


	7. Second

_SECOND._

We walk quickly down the ground floor corridor, and I grip Tristan's arm all the way, moving us forward, further. I don't know why, but I know that I have to be far away form the Great Hall. I have to be far away and somewhere safe. It's like premonition, but for something that has already happened; I'm waiting for something that I've missed.

The boys look worried. They ask question after question after question, the first one as soon as we walked through the great double doors, from the Hall; _'Lu, are you OK?', 'What's wrong?', 'Where are we going so fast?', 'you were staring at that Black boy, weren't you?'. _ I shake my head at them, saying 'not now' when I can catch my breath. I don't think question's need to be asked, because the answers come on their own most, anyway, and they just waste time; time that I need to use to run, to take off.

The corridor stretches like it doesn't want to end, and the sound of my feet beating over stone, my own breath shooting from my lips is loud in my ears. I make my eyes blind and I keep walking, putting metres and metres between us.

"I think- I think I need to go outside," I breath and stop walking. Every word shakes on my white lips. The corridor is narrowing, drawing in, pressing. I want something else now; open space and green and long skies, but I want them to come to me, because I can't turn back to where I've come from, I just can't.

"I think you need to sit down, look – we're here now," Drew says too softly, like someone talking to the mentally unstable. His big, round glasses slip down his nose and I drink up his face; red cheeks, long, hazel eyes and floppy hair, a face I know. I feel his hand on my shoulder, and look away from his face to watch the other push open a door that I didn't even see. I breath out a long breath and step over the thresh-hold with his arm around me.

I think I must have fallen through a worm-hole, and somehow got outside. I look down because I can feel wet grass under my feet, and see green. I don't know where the castle went, and I don't feel grounded so maybe it slipped out from under me, maybe. I move my feet around, testing it, thinking I might just fall through the floor, and frown. It feels like grass should.

"You'll get used to that," Tristan laughs, coming into the garden after us. "Well, you wanted to go outside, right?"

He puts a hand on each shoulder and pushes me onto a big log, to the right of the door. I smile at him and run my hands along the bark and over soft moss. The wood is rotten and black, but it dips in, in just the right place for me to sit down. The moss is soft under my hands, and cool and damp and springy; the smell of the forest is like the smell of home.

This is a good place to be.

I cast my eyes along the four walls, that don't feel like walls. It's not like any of the other classrooms in the castle, but like a wild garden or a piece of the forbidden forest. Long, yellow grass grows up through the earthy floor, between rocks and dust and weeds; jaded light spills in through the spaces in the canopy of leaves that stretch, hanging low over the windows; the door, as it clicks shut behind us, disappears and falls in with the leafy walls, and but for a weak shaft of light that passes under the gap at the bottom, I wouldn't know it was there; trees cast long shadows in the mottled light.

"Right, what's up?" Drew asks softly, and moves to sit with me on the log. I watch Tristan throw himself down on his back onto the grass in front of us, looking up at the ceiling.

"I don't really know."

"_Yes_, you do," Tristan says sharply, and his eyes flick up to my pale face. "You were just having breakdown there, Lu, almost; _something_ is wrong."

"I was just- upset."

"What, with that Jack Black, that you sit next to?" Drew asks, searching my face.

"Well, no," I sigh, and cast around for something to say to them, a lie to tell. "I – I had a little bit of an argument with Dad about- _things _and Jack's really good at Transfiguration – he's like, the class pet, so I just felt- I felt caught between him and my dad back then, almost."

"I like you just as you are, don't worry," Tristan smiles, and sits up to pat my knee. I smile back at him, but I feel bad that I'm lying all the time and I pull down my sleeves so that my hands disappear. I can't tell them what really happened, because, the thing is, they wouldn't understand it like I do; no-one would get it, and they'd get him expelled, or just hex him or something. Its not like that, _he_'_s _not like that.

"I know, thanks, Trist."

Drew looks like he's going to say something else, but the voice we hear speak isn't his, its someone else's, and its very low -

"So, we have a guest?"

I've never seen him before, this close, and I think he's wonderful; the centaur, _Professor Firenze, _walks out from behind a tree. I flush pink as he looks me up and down. I know a centaur in the forest called Marion, and we talk a lot but he isn't anything like this one. I stare at his pale blue eyes, flat and open like plain-lands, and the silky blond curls, shot through with a grey, and his long, bare chest. I watch his tail flick from side to side, with my eyes down; left, right and a full circle.

His eyes pass over me, and he says something quietly, something that I don't like, and I don't really get, before he turns to Tristan and Drew -

"You should be careful, for Venus – you like your magical creatures so much, that you'll turn yourself feral, young lady."

I sit in an armchair next to the fire, in the evening, and the burning coals warm me up. Amelia is lying on her stomach on the carpet, at my feet, doing some work for arithmancy,

Over the next weeks, Jack doesn't try to talk to me again, or come over, or even look at me. I don't tempt him either. It's a good thing, because I start to feel more- more normal, again. It's like, going outside when you're too hot in the house,and even though it's raining, you don't mind because the water on your skin isn't that bad. I'm just waiting in the rain, until I can take the heat. I think about it all the time, or I know it'll rot me from the inside; _what do I want?_ I don't know if it's just a breath, or to talk with him, or whether I never want to see his face again, but the space lets me think about it like I'm outside of myself looking in. I can see things set out, clear like looking in through a glass house.

I know one thing so far- one thing that he owes to me; an explanation, but I won't have until I'm ready, and I'm not ready for it yet.

In Transfiguration, he keeps his new seat at the back, and I don't send him back any notes. I have a wordless agreement with Dad, that I can leave the room before he calls me back; well I run like hell before he can do anything about it, if that's the same. I go quickly, but Jack is quicker; at the end of every lesson, he's gone before I even turn round. I feel his eyes in me when I'm eating in the Great Hall, but I don't look behind me, not ever.

I don't go anywhere alone.

I don't know if he's giving me space, or if he's just a coward, but I hope for his sake that it's the first one; I want to think that he's good in some way, because it would be hard for me to admit that I was always wrong about him. On bad days, I pretend that he's leaving me alone because he wants me to work it out for myself, like a detective that has to find the movements of a murderer.

The days crawl by, and I wait for something to change, but it doesn't; until three weeks have passed, and then when we meet again, and it's unearthly like the first time.

"-and it's fascinating really, when you think about the way that just that small budding

flower can kill even a giant, if you smell it at the right time of year," Roger says, and I think he's excited about it because his voice goes up an octave. _Well, _I think, _good for Roger,_ and I nod like I'm listening, but I'm not. The seventh floor corridor is long and dark , like it always is when I have to patrol it with Roger, and the shadows change on us. He pauses, so I take my chances -

"Roger," I say, before he can get another word in.

"Oh, yes?"

"I think if we want to catch anyone out, then we can't talk to each other, or they'll know we're here and make a run for it."

"Ah yes, that's a point if we want to catch the scoundrels," he says, puffing out his chest. I make a gagging sound, trying to stop the laughter getting out, and he looks at me sideways and puts a finger to his lips.

"Oh yeah, sorry," I cough quietly.

He looks like a spy as he moves along the walls, uses his wand so that he can see round the corners, and jumps into antechambers like a hunter. He doesn't need to do that, but it's fun to watch. I walk along slowly, behind him and when he asks what I'm doing, I say with a smile that I've _got his back_. I laugh into my hand watching his face, and his narrow, serious eyes raking one corridor, then the next.

Walking the castle at night is one of those things that everyone talks about, but no-one really does it and the people that _do do_ it aren't stupid enough to get caught out; patrol is like a walk in the park for prefects, a mission for Roger. The lamps are starting to burn low, so I take out my wand and light it with a single whispered _Lumos_. I hold it up over my head and the single shaft throws Roger out of shadow as he yells out and leaps back from a shaking tapestry. I run over to him, excited.

"Hush, I've found someone," he whispers, and points his wand. I hear a hiss, and then I fall back laughing when a cat flies at him, all the hairs on it's back standing on end. It turns out to be quite a nasty cat, and Roger kicks at it before it can tear his ankles apart.

_That_, is the most interesting adventure two prefects will ever have together on an evening patrol.

"Ah, we should have seen it coming, Rog, the code 'angry black cat' situation," I say seriously, and he scowls at me, dusting down his trousers. It's not a time to be making jokes, I see.

We carry on down the corridor in silence, and I'm all right, and then we turn another corner and my breath starts to come in short bursts. It's like, that moment of blind panic when you find out that you've lost something that's important, like your wand, when you need it more than anything; one second you're happy enough, and then you pat your pockets and it's gone and your neck grows hot. It feels just like that, but the thing that's fallen out of my pocket isn't something I think I can find again. I've lost _ignorance_, the moment my heel ground into the stone and I made an about turn, it dropped right out.

I'm having a sort of _de ja vu, _but more like, a recurring nightmare, keen recognition.

I hold my breath, and all I can see as we move slowly down the corridor is the next corner growing bigger, closer, like a shadow moving in the sun. I turned around that corner, just a month ago, in the dark, and around that corner is where I caught out Jack. I look down to see goose pimples pop up on my arms, but my neck feels warm; they used to do that when I was little, and Neville told us ghost stories at the Burrow. I breath out slowly, and Roger looks at me.

"Lucy, are you all right?" he asks kindly. I pat his arm and nod, like you might pat an old person's arm. I must look pale for him to stare at me long enough to notice that something is different, when his nose could be under a tapestry or around the corner. He turns away and I sigh at myself. I know that I'm making my own bad dream, throwing things from the past into the shadows between the torches, but I can't help it. I feel like I did then, in the dark, my feet on the stone, come full circle. "Oh, lets go through here, there's a handy antechamber on the right, and good to hide in I expect!"

Roger pulls me by the arm through a door that looks like another stretch of wall, into a thin passageway, just before we get to the corner. I sigh, because I know there won't be anyone here, but it's good to see different stone walls and torches burning high. We walk through the passageway, and as we get to the last corridor before the staircase, I see someone moving. _God no_, I think as my arms go limp at my sides. My heart stops for a second, and then kicks into gear, pumping hard. He can't see us, because we're in shadow, coming from the side. It's not all like it was a month ago, but this part is the same.

I throw out my arm to stop Roger from going out onto the main corridor, and step back into the darkest shadow. Jack is walking with his head down, one hand on the wall as he moves and fingers raking over the stone; he's wearing a navy dressing-gown and has a glinting silver flask under one arm. I press into the wall to stop myself from leaping out into the corridor. It's one of those moments, where you have to push away gushing instinct and fight yourself. I can't see him after all that's happened, I can't meet him in the corridor again.

I know best what's good for me, don't I?

Jack is passing, and everything is going to be ok, I think. I forget about Roger though, and I start as he clears his throat loudly, before I can say anything to stop him. He moves to step out into the corridor, probably to snap at Jack for being out of bed. I don't think about it, I just grip his arm and pull him back along the passageway- it's all I can think of, not to be seen. Roger digs in his heels.

"What on earth are you doing?" he snaps, trying to pull his arm away.

"Oh, please Roger, _q__uick!_" I hiss, swinging on his arm, and inch by inch I move him back, but all he wants to do is go back and catch Jack out. He tries to shake me off, right up to the point where I turn him around the corner and out into another corridor. I pant, and look over my shoulder thinking we've got away, we're almost there; but then, just as the corner eclipses us I turn back to look and I see Jack's silver eyes flick in our direction, glittering and cool in the dark. He disappears.

"What's wrong with you?" Roger shouts out, sending my hand spinning from his arm. I catch my breath as we wait outside an antechamber. I look up into his scowling face and wave a hand at him, not wanting to answer, trying to get the picture of Jack on the corridor out of my mind. "_Lucy!_" Roger snaps.

"It doesn't matter," I sigh, as he bears down on me.

"But-"

"Rog," I say warningly, "you- _shit_!"

I cry out and leap back into the wall as the head of my cousin, floating like he doesn't care that his body isn't there, appears under the lamplight. His head laughs down at me, and shakes at Roger, who has put himself in front of me and has his wand out; well, it's like he thinks he's a noble knight. I step out from behind him and I scowl up at Albus, trying to catch my breath; hair shaggier than uncle Harry's and thicker, and the green eyes are shot through with hazel that most people don't see, no round glasses but weird things called contact lenses, filmy little circles, a broader face and freckles across his nose. They all say that he looks just like uncle Harry, and he does look more like him than James and Lily but he's his own person too. He pushes Roger's wand away from his face, and shakes out his hair.

"Ok, settle down, mate," he laughs, and winks at me.

" Al, don't _do _that," I snap, and put my hand on Roger's shoulder. He looks angry and startled all at once, and white as he stares at Al's head, hanging there. I sigh - "It's all right, Roger, he's just got an invisibility cloak on, the plank."

"Oh right, charming Lu," Al grumbles, and I throw him a look. Roger's breath shoots from his lips and his eyes close in relief, poor sod. He passes a hand over his face and stands up straight to bear down on me again.

"Do you know, I think I've had enough for tonight," he snaps, and turns on his heel. I watch with a sigh, as he stalks away, and only pauses to call over his shoulder - "and I'm only letting the fact that you're out past curfew drop because you're her cousin, _mate_."

Al lets out a long, low whistle as Roger disappears around the corner, heels clicking on the stone. I stare up at him.

"Well, _he's _got a bee or two in his bonnet, hasn't he?" Al laughs. "It's not that much past curfew for God's sake, a_nd _I'm a bloody seventh year!"

"Oh, come off it, Al! It's not his fault, is it; there isn't anything to see of you except your bloody head, and I know that would make _me _edgy, and well, Roger likes to- what would you call it?- flaunt his prefect-ness, and I haven't been letting him tonight. He's just pissed, that's all!" I say, and then pause. "What are you doing, anyway?"

"Well, I'm looking for you, aren't I?" he smiles, and throws up the invisibility cloak so that it falls on us both. I think it's much nicer, talking to a whole person, but I frown at him.

"What do you want with me?"

"Oh, don't look so nervous!" he laughs. "It's only that, my dad was giving an evening class on Defence Against the Dark Arts, and now he's up in the Gryffindor common room, like he always is if he's here. I came to find you and steal you away for some family time."

We start to walk together, back along the corridor.

"_Oh_! Ok then," I say brightly. The Gryffindor common room in the evening, with Lily sitting on uncle Harry's knee, in an armchair and Neville in the other, and the rest of us lying on our stomachs on the old rug by the warm fireplace, is a place that I love to be. If you've ever sat in a circle around a camp fire and sang along to old camp songs, then I think it's like that; you can smell burning coals, and there's music in the stories that they tell us, like, a whole rich history.

"Ok, but I'll need to tell Amelia where I'm going, or - can she come too?"

"Oh, Amelia's already there – I went to get you before from the Ravenclaw tower but you weren't there and I invited her along too," he shrugs, and takes my arm. It looks like he's blushing, under the torchlight, but I don't say anything to him. I let him half carry me back along the seventh corridor to the portrait of the fat lady. I like the fat lady; in my first three years, I used to sit cross-legged in front of the portrait and ask her questions about being a Gryffindor, when I got the time.

I smile at her and she says _hello dear_ in the wobbly, warm voice that I always love. Al raises his eyebrows.

"_Belladonna_," he says, and the fat lady swings back.

Through the square opening, I can see my cousins sitting around the fire. Lily is up on Uncle Harry's knee, long red hair in a plait; I can see Hugo's wavy orange hair and heavy, freckled face from the floor; Rose is sitting back to back with her friend Henry and Louis is lying on his stomach, back of his blonde head to us and talking to Lorcan. Uncle Harry is leaning forward, speaking with Neville.

"-it was the best feeling, wasn't it Nev? When he just fell into the room of requirement, like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, and everything just _stopped_._"_

"What are you talking about?" Albus asks, as he pulls off the invisibility cloak, and throws it to Lily.

"Oh, when your uncle Percy came back," uncle Harry smiles. I stop where I am, but Albus walks over to sit by Amelia and Neville, and I barely even bat an eyelid when she smiles at him. I don't think, not once, not absolutely ever, that I've heard a war story about my dad. It's like finding a page you skipped in a book, and now, everything makes a little bit more sense.

"When- when my dad came back?" I ask him, arms folding themselves. I move forward and sit cross-legged in front of uncle Harry.

"Oh yes," says Neville, "he was a bit of a last minute hero, but he was brilliant when he came."

The torches in brackets are burning low, as uncle Harry takes us back along the corridors to the Ravenclaw common-room. I walk with my head down as he talks; if someone walked past us, it would look like he was talking to himself, because he told us to use Al's invisibility cloak -

"I'll bet they think I'm a terrible influence," he says, shaking his head with a small smile. "- encouraging students to sneak around the school in the night."

The corridors are so silent, its like they're not there at all.

"You're quiet, Lu?"

I look up at the thin scar on uncle Harry's forehead, the green eyes behind the round glasses; this is the face of stories, and legends and newspapers, and chocolate frog cards. I think about my dad.

"I never heard anyone tell a story about my dad, like that," I say quietly. "I think it's just, sad that after all these years I didn't know about him, like that."

"Your dad's alright Lucy, and I think after everything, he just didn't want to make a big deal out of it, you know?"

I nod; I think Dad was just different, like me.

"I'll leave you here, then," he whispers, stopping at the end of the corridor, that turns into the Ravenclaw common room. I slide out of the cloak, and uncle Harry squeezes my shoulder, saying - "Look after yourself, Lu."

_I'll try_, I think as I follow Amelia into the common room, but a shiver goes through me; some people say that someone's walked over your grave when you get a shiver, and I think it's a little bit like that, it's like premonition, like your whole body is waiting for something.

I try to shake off the feeling, but I can't.


End file.
